Irony of the Day: Iran Seizes Nobel Peace Prize

What a great bunch these people are:

Iranian authorities have confiscated Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi’s medal, the Norwegian government said Thursday, accusing Iran of a shocking first in the history of the prize.

Norwegian authorities were told that Ebadi’s medal was seized “within the last week or so” from a safe-deposit box in Iran along with personal effects including the diploma awarded with the medal, the Foreign Ministry said. Spokeswoman Ragnhild Imerslund said Norwegian authorities have been “in touch” with Ebadi since the incident.

Ebadi, a human rights lawyer, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her efforts in promoting democracy. She has long faced harassment from Iranian authorities for her activities — including a raid on her office last year in which files were confiscated.

The seizure of the medal is an expression of the Iranian government’s increasingly harsh approach to anyone it considers an opponent — particularly since massive street protests that erupted following the disputed June 12 presidential election and shook the government’s legitimacy.

Ebadi was out of the country at the time of the vote and has not returned since, saying she is “in an effective state of exile.”

Ebadi said in an interview published Nov. 17 in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera that her apartment, pension and her bank account and those of her relatives had been seized, along with her Nobel and Legion of Honor.

“I live in an effective state of exile,” she was quoted as saying from a hotel in New York, where she had been attending U.N. meetings. “They say I owe them $410,000 in back taxes because of the Nobel; it’s a complete lie, given that the Iranian fiscal law says that prizes are excluded.”

She nevertheless said she plans to return to Iran when she can be more useful in the country than outside it.

“Nothing frightens me any more, even if they threaten to arrest me for fiscal evasion upon my return,” she said.

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