In February Parvin Ardalan was awarded the Olof Palme Prize for 2007 for succeeding in making the demand for equal rights for men and women a central part of the struggle for democracy in Iran. Since then the prominent activist has been summoned to court at least three times on various charges.

Ardalan was even barred from leaving Iran to travel to Sweden to accept the Olof Palme Prize. She had already boarded the plane when security agents removed her. Authorities confiscated her passport and a travel ban against her remains intact.

Ardalan is a journalist and one of the founding members of the One Million Signatures Campaign, which aims to collect 1 million signatures in support of changing Iran’s discriminatory laws against women. In the past, she has been interrogated several times and detained as a result of her writings and activism.

On 24 April 2007, the Sixth Branch of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran sentenced Ardalan to three years imprisonment for collusion and assembly to endanger the national security. The charges stem from a March 2007 arrest while she and other women peacefully gathered in front of the Tehran Revolutionary Court to mark International Women’s Day. Her sentence is being appealed.

Read more about charges facing women’s rights defenders in Iran.

The Nobel Women’s Initiative was honored to have Ardalan participate in “Women Redfining Peace in the Middle East & Beyond,” our international women’s conference held in May 2007. We congratulate Parvin, and all the brave women of Iran, for your courageous activism!

Photo: Parvin Ardalan at “Women Redefining Peace in the Middle East & Beyond”. Courtesy of J. Rand Images, Inc.

LEARN MORE

• Award winning rights activist charged with spreading propaganda, Payvand’s Iran News, 9 April 2008

• Int’l Women’s Day celebrations on mute, IPS, 11 March 2008

• I’m carrying on, says defiant Iranian woman activist Parvin Ardalan, Monsters and Critics, 10 March 2008

The Olof Palme Memorial Fund

Press Release
Wednesday February 13th 2008

THE OLOF PALME PRIZE 2007 is awarded to PARVIN ARDALAN

Olof Palmepriset 2007 goes to Parvin Ardalan, frontfigure for the Iranian women’s movement. Her commitment and insistent work represents a path of democracy and dialogue in a region filled with conflict.

The Olof Palme Prize for 2007 goes to Parvin Ardalan, who has succeeded in making the demand for equal rights for men and women a central part of the struggle for democracy in Iran. As a result, the women’s movement for civil rights and liberties has, to a great extent, spread geographically as well as socially. Despite persecution, threats and harassment, Parvin Ardaln has been persistent in her struggle and never compromised her ideals. Through constantly more ingenious methods, she and her fellow sisters have managed to increase the support for equal rights. The ongoing campaign for a million signatures against discrimination is an excellent example. Their intensive work deserves international recognition as a path to democracy and peace in this region of turbulence and conflict.