“Shirin Ebadi is quite simply the most vital voice for freedom and human rights in Iran.”—Reza Aslan, #1 New York Times bestselling author of No god but God and Zealot
For years the Islamic Republic tried to intimidate Shirin Ebadi, but after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rose to power in 2005, the persecution intensified. The government wiretapped Ebadi’s phones, bugged her law firm, sent spies to follow her, harassed her colleagues, detained her daughter, and arrested her sister on trumped-up charges. It shut down her lectures, fired up mobs to attack her home, and nailed a death threat to her front door. But nothing could keep Ebadi from speaking out and standing up for human dignity.
This is the amazing, at times harrowing, simply astonishing story of a woman who would never give up. Just as her words and deeds have inspired a nation, Until We Are Free will inspire you to find the courage to stand up for your beliefs.
Author
Shirin Ebadi
Dr. Shirin Ebadi was one of Iran’s first female judges and served as the first female chief magistrate of one of the country’s highest courts until the 1979 Islamic Revolution stripped her of her judgeship. In the 1990s Ebadi returned to the law as a defender of women’s and children’s rights, founding a human rights center that spearheaded legal reform and public debate around the Islamic Republic’s discriminatory laws. She has defended many of the country’s most prominent prisoners of conscience and spent nearly a month in prison in 1999 for her activities. For many years she was at the center of Iran’s grassroots women’s movement. In 2003 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work. Since the election uprising of June 2009 she has lived in exile.
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