Nobel Peace Prize winner to give next President’s Lecture

FROM RICE NEWS AND STAFF REPORTS

Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi will deliver the next installment in the 2005-06 President’s Lecture Series. Titled “Human Rights and Islam and the West,” the lecture will take place at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3, in Grand Hall, Rice Memorial Center.

Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2003 for her efforts to promote human rights — in particular, the rights of women, children and political prisoners in Iran. She is the first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ebadi became the first female to head a legislative branch in Iran in 1975. Following the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, she was removed from her judicial post. After being demoted to clerk, Ebadi requested early retirement and left the justice department. She then wrote several books calling for greater legal protection for Iranian children and for disclosing alleged human rights violations by the Iranian authorities.

After obtaining her license to practice law in 1992, Ebadi set up her own practice. She has taken on controversial cases defending political dissidents and, as a result, Ebadi has been sent to prison numerous times.

A lecturer at Tehran University, she has established nongovernmental organizations in Iran, including those for the protection of women, children and political prisoners. Ebadi also drafted the original text of a law against physical abuse of children, which was passed in 2002.

Her memoirs, “Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope,” is slated for publication in May.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Supported by the J. Newton Rayzor Lecture Fund, the President’s Lecture Series brings to campus prominent scientists, philosophers, writers, politicians and other public figures who foster understanding of the world.

For more information, visit <www.rice.edu/pls> or call 713-348-5585.