Shirin Ebadi

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Lore & Background

Ebadi was born in Hamedan into an educated family; her mother was Minu Yamini, and her father, Mohammad Ali Ebadi, was the city's chief notary public and a professor of commercial law. When she was an infant, her family moved to Tehran. She attended Anoshiravn Dadgar and Reza Shah Kabir schools before earning a law degree from the University of Tehran in 1969. After a six-month internship, she officially became a judge in March 1969. In 1975, she became the first female president of the Tehran city court and served until the Iranian Revolution. After the 1979 Revolution, women were no longer allowed to serve as judges, and she was dismissed and given a new job as a clerk in the court she had presided over. Despite already having a law office permit, her applications were repeatedly rejected, and she was unable to practice law until 1993. She used this free time to write books and many articles in Iranian periodicals. As a lawyer, Ebadi took pro bono cases of dissident figures persecuted by the Iranian judiciary. Among her clients were the family of Dariush Forouhar, a dissident intellectual and politician who was found stabbed to death along with his wife, Parvaneh Eskandari. The murders were found to be committed by a team of employees of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, whose head, Saeed Emami, allegedly committed suicide in jail. Ebadi represented the family of Ezzat Ebrahim-Nejad, who was killed in the Iranian student protests in July 1999. In 2000, Ebadi was accused of manipulating the videotaped confession of Amir Farshad Ebrahimi, a former member of the Ansar-e Hezbollah. Ebadi and another lawyer, Rohami, were sentenced to five years in jail and suspension of their law licenses for sending Ebrahimi's videotaped deposition to President Khatami and the head of the Islamic judiciary; the Islamic judiciary's supreme court later vacated the sentences. Ebadi defended child abuse cases, including the case of Arian Golshani, a child who was abused for years and then beaten to death by her father and stepbrother. She also handled the case of Leila, a teenage girl who was gang-raped and murdered. Ebadi established two non-governmental organizations: the Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child (1994) and the Defenders of Human Rights Center (2001). She helped draft the original text of a law against physical abuse of children, which was passed by the Iranian parliament in 2002. On 16 March 2026, Reza Pahlavi appointed Ebadi as head of a committee called the Transitional Justice Regulations Drafting Committee, that includes Iraj Mesdaghi, Leila Bahmani, and Afshin Ellian, for planning for a hypothetical transitional Iranian government led by Pahlavi following the 2026 Iran war. The committee was expected to prepare rules to create a court and a fact-finding commission for post-1979 human rights violations in Iran.

Reader's Guide

Shirin Ebadi's significance lies in her role as a pioneering female judge in Iran before the 1979 Revolution and her subsequent transformation into a leading human rights lawyer and activist. Her Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 recognized her pioneering efforts for democracy and women's, children's, and refugee rights, making her the first Iranian to receive the award. Her work on high-profile cases—including the murders of Dariush Forouhar and Parvaneh Eskandari, the killing of Ezzat Ebrahim-Nejad during the 1999 student protests, and the videotaped confession controversy involving Amir Farshad Ebrahimi—brought international scrutiny to Iran's judicial system. Her defense of child abuse victims like Arian Golshani and Leila highlighted problematic laws, including child custody laws that usually give custody to the father and the requirement for victims' families to pay the government to execute rapists. Ebadi established two non-governmental organizations: the Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child (1994) and the Defenders of Human Rights Center (2001). She helped draft a law against physical abuse of children, passed by the Iranian parliament in 2002. In her book *Iran Awakening*, Ebadi explains her view that 'an interpretation of Islam that is in harmony with equality and democracy is an authentic expression of faith' and that 'change in Iran must come peacefully and from within.' She explicitly rejected foreign intervention, stating at a press conference after the Peace Prize announcement: 'The fight for human rights is conducted in Iran by the Iranian people, and we are against any foreign intervention in Iran.' She initially defended Iran's nuclear development program as 'a cause of national pride,' but in a 2012 interview stated that 'the people want to stop enrichment' and expressed fear of a Fukushima-type situation. In March 2026, Reza Pahlavi appointed Ebadi to head the Transitional Justice Regulations Drafting Committee, tasked with creating a framework for a court and fact-finding commission to address human rights violations under the Islamic Republic. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in 2026 by Time magazine.

Did You Know?

• Ebadi was one of the first female judges in Iran and became the first female president of the Tehran city court in 1975.
• After the 1979 Revolution, she was dismissed from her judgeship and made a clerk in the same court she had presided over.
• In 2000, Ebadi was sentenced to five years in jail and suspension of her law license for sending a videotaped confession to President Khatami, but the sentence was later vacated by the Islamic judiciary's supreme court.
• She helped draft the original text of a law against physical abuse of children, which was passed by the Iranian parliament in 2002.
• On 16 March 2026, Reza Pahlavi appointed Ebadi as head of the Transitional Justice Regulations Drafting Committee, which includes Iraj Mesdaghi, Leila Bahmani, and Afshin Ellian.