Shirin Ebadi - Oslo Freedom Forum 2011

Iranian lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi has years of experience resisting the oppressive government of Iran and trying to promote freedom of expression in her country. She begins her talk by praising the virtues of freedom of thought and expression--the freedom on which everything else depends. In a secular society, religious people should be able to speak. In a religious society, secular people should be able to speak. In a socialist society, capitalists should be able to speak. In a capitalist society, socialists should be able to speak. Ebadi then points out that according to Article 20 of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, any kind of speech that incites discrimination or violence is outlawed. In Ebadi's legal opinion of Article 20, the majority cannot release humiliating statements about a minority group, but minorities are free to criticize the prevalent opinion. In Iran, minorities have no such power—it is illegal to criticize the constitution, the government blocks all websites that support women's rights, and the broadcasts of television channels like BBC and Voice of America are jammed. The outside world cannot look on passively as this repression continues; Ebadi tells people living in free societies to use their voices to bring liberty to others and to always remember that "the fate of humanity is intertwined."

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Oslo Freedom Forum
• human rights
• freedom of expression
• censorship
• majority
• minority
• religion
• humiliation
• discrimination
• books
• journalists
• Internet
• women's rights
• television
• lawyers
• Iran
• muslim world