Shirin Ebadi is an author, lawyer, and was the first female judge in Iran, living in exile in London since 2009. In 2003, she received the Nobel Peace Prize. Ebadi was a judge in Iran until 1979, the year of the Islamic Revolution, after which she was not allowed to work as a judge. In 1994, she co-founded the Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child in 1994. In 2002, she co-founded the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC) with other lawyers to assist those working towards promoting democracy,
After her Nobel Prize in 2003, she co-founded the Nobel Women’s Initiative in 2006, and used some of her prize money to support DHRC. In 2008, the Iranian government closed down DHRC by raiding her office, which had, by then, 30 lawyers working on cases. While she was traveling abroad, her professional archives and personal belongings were confiscated, her sister arrested on spurious charges.
