Shirin Ebadi

Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer and human rights activist who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her efforts to promote democracy and the rights of women and children. She was Iran's first female judge, serving on the Tehran city court from 1975 until she was forced to resign after the 1979 revolution. As a lawyer, she represented the family of Dariush Forouhar and Parvaneh Forouhar in the chain murders case. During the investigation she discovered that she herself had been on the murder list — her assassination had been postponed until after Ramadan, and the unit was arrested in the interim. She stated unequivocally that Saeed Emami's claimed suicide in prison was impossible. She also represented the family of Canadian-Iranian photographer Zahra Kazemi, who was killed in Evin Prison in 2003. Ebadi left Iran in 2009 and lives in exile in the UK.