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Iranian reaction to Nobel mixed

Shirin Ebadi, winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, receives flowers as she arrives at a news conference in Parison Friday. PHOTO: REUTERS

Iran's first Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi on Friday, has exposed the battlelines between the nation's conservatives and reformists who exchanged fire in yesterday's newspapers.

Iran's conservatives accused the Nobel committee of pandering to the West's political agenda by awarding its Peace Prize to Ebadi. Ranged against them, reformists hailed her as a catalyst for change.

Ebadi, 56, is a thorn in the side of hardliners and a vocal campaigner on women's rights who has taken on the defense of political activists -- cases others feared to touch.

While conservative-controlled state-run television and radio were still agonizing over how to broadcast the news, Iranian girls who saw Friday's award on satellite-TV stations were excitedly ringing each other and sending text messages.

After some initial confusion on how it should respond, President Mohammad Khatami's reformist government late Friday finally gave an official but cautious welcome to the accolade.

Late in the evening in Tehran, official spokesman Abdollah Rame-zanzadeh said the government hoped the Nobel laureate's views "will be taken into consideration both inside and outside the borders of Iran."

"In the name of the government of the Islamic republic, I welcome the success of Mrs. Ebadi," he said.

"This is an honor for the community of Iranian women and demonstrates that Iranian Muslim women have found in their country a good place for their activities," the spokesman said.

Assadollah Badamchian, who heads the political branch of the conservative Coalition Party, was sceptical about the Nobel committee's motives.

"It is natural that somebody who calls herself a reformist and is supported by [US Secretary of State Colin] Powell, [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair and [US President George W.] Bush receives this prize," he was quoted as saying in yesterday's papers.

Ali Yousefpour, president of the Muslim Journalists' Association said Ebadi's award echoed the prize given to Egypt's late president Anwar Sadat, loathed by hardliners who accuse him of selling out to arch-foe Israel and sheltering the exiled shah.

"This award has been given those who work in the line of Western interests or against Islam," he was quoted as saying.

Though the reformist press splashed Ebadi's smile across the front pages, conservative papers such as Resalat, one of whose editors dismissed the award as political, made no mention of her victory.

Other hardline periodicals tucked a few dismissive column inches in the back pages and the conservative Jomhuri-ye Eslami even confused her with another woman lawyer.

However, Ali Moazami, a columnist in the reformist daily Sharq, said the award would offer wind to the sails of the reform movement.

"It is an encouragement for those who want freedom to raise their voices," he wrote. "Everyone seemed to interpret it as a sign of cries being heard."

"I hope the people who do not approve of her will now reconsider their position," said Sharbanou Amani, one of 13 women lawmakers in the Iranian parliament.

Collegue Elaheh Koulaie said the prize "shows the world community that the democracy process in Iran is going forward."
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