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Agence France Press: Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, seized the opportunity to accuse the United States of using the September 11 attacks to justify violating international law and human rights. "In the past two years, some states have violated the universal principles and laws of human rights by using the events of September 11 and the war on international terrorism as a pretext," Ebadi said in her acceptance speech, without mentioning the United States by name. "International human rights laws are breached not only by their recognized opponents..., but ... these principles are also violated in Western democracies," she added.
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Thursday December 11, 1:43 AM
Nobel winner Ebadi takes swipe at US in accepting Peace Prize
Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, seized the opportunity to accuse the United States of using the September 11 attacks to justify violating international law and human rights.
"In the past two years, some states have violated the universal principles and laws of human rights by using the events of September 11 and the war on international terrorism as a pretext," Ebadi said in her acceptance speech, without mentioning the United States by name.
"International human rights laws are breached not only by their recognized opponents..., but ... these principles are also violated in Western democracies," she added.
Ebadi, 56, received the prize from chairman of the Nobel Committee Ole Mjoes at a formal ceremony in Oslo's City Hall, marked by the absence of King Harald V of Norway who was recovering from cancer surgery.
The ceremony was attended by Queen Sonja, Crown Prince Regent Haakon Magnus, and Crown Princess Mette-Marit, among others.
In her speech, Ebadi also commented on prisoners detained at a US base in Cuba, saying they were "without the benefit of the rights stipulated under the international Geneva conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the (UN) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."
Chosen for her democracy-building efforts and her work to improve human rights and women's rights in Iran, one of three countries in what US President George W. Bush has called the "axis of evil", Ebadi also pointed to selective application of UN decisions.
"Why is it that some decisions and resolutions of the UN Security Council are binding, while some other resolutions of the council have no binding force?" she asked, pointing to the different treatment of Israel and Iraq.
"Why is it that in the past 35 years, dozens of UN resolutions concerning the occupation of the Palestinian territories by the state of Israel have not been implemented properly," she continued.
"Yet, in the past 12 years, the state and people of Iraq... were subjected to attack, military assault, economic sanctions, and, ultimately, military occupation," she said.
Some observers had expected Ebadi to focus more of her criticism on her own country's regime, rather than on the US and the West, but Norwegian experts said she wanted to prove that she is not in the service of the West, as some Iranian extremists allege.
"I think Ebadi's main intention was not to appear as a puppet of the United States," Stein Toennesson, head of the Oslo Peace Research Institute (PRIO) told AFP, adding that Ebadi's comments on rights abuses by the Iranian government were relatively muted.
Ebadi made headlines when she became Iran's first female judge in 1974, and again when she was stripped of her post by the new ruling clerics of the 1979 revolution, who decided that women were by nature unsuitable for such responsibilities.
But it was when she served as lawyer for two of several dissidents murdered in 1999 -- in a spate of grisly killings that was eventually pinned on "rogue" agents from Iran's intelligence ministry -- that she really provoked the ire of the country's hardliners.
In June 2000, she was jailed for three weeks, and then a closed-door court handed her a suspended prison sentence of five years and barred her from practicing law.
Ebadi's appearance at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony Wednesday continued to provoke harsh reactions from her critics, who have even issued death threats over her decision to accept her award without a headscarf, or hijab.
Iranian women are required by law to keep their heads covered, even when travelling outside the country.
Iran's official television, which barely mentioned the Peace Prize ceremony Wednesday, showed only an archive photo of Ebadi with a headscarf.
That Ebadi also firmly shook hands with Mjoes when she accepted her prize will probably draw yet more fire from hardline groups like Basij, which criticized her for allegedly shaking hands with another man at Amir Kabir university several weeks ago.
The Basij group is believed to have been behind an attack on Ebadi last week, when around 50 hardliners stopped her giving a speech at Al-Zahra women's university in Tehran.
Ebadi reiterated that Islam and human rights were compatible.
"The discriminatory plight of women in Islamic states... has its roots in the patriarchal and male-dominated culture prevailing in these societies, not in Islam," she said.
The human rights advocate is the third Muslim and the 11th woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, which consists of a diploma, a gold medal, and a cheque for 10 million Swedish kronor (about 1.4 million dollars, 1.1 million euros).
According to press reports, Ebadi plans to donate her prize money to human rights groups in Iran, in particular to those concerned with children and prisoners of conscience.
At a separate ceremony in Stockholm on Wednesday, the winners of the Literature, Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and Economics prizes received their awards from King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm's Concert Hall.
That ceremony was to be followed by a gala banquet for 1,300 guests at Stockholm's City Hall.