Shirin Ebadi was born in Iran in 1947. She graduated from the law department of the University of Tehran in 1969, and officially became a judge that year - the first woman to become a presiding Judge in Iran. Two years later, she obtained a doctoral degree in private law. In 1975, she became the first woman president of the Tehran city court where she served until the 1979 Iranian Revolution when she was forced to step down along with other woman judges. She was made a clerk in the court she had once presided over, until she petitioned for early retirement.
After obtaining her lawyer’s license in 1992, Ebadi set up private practice. In 1994, she established the Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child in Iran. In 2000, she was jailed for several weeks and suspended from practicing law for five years after she and another attorney were accused of releasing a video that supposedly slandered members of the government. That year she won the Rafto Prize for her work promoting democracy and fighting for human rights in Iran. In 2001, Ebadi established the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC) in Iran.
Ebadi was awarded the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize 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. In 2006, along with sister Laureate Jody Williams, Ebadi took the lead in establishing the Nobel Women’s Initiative.
Ebadi is the author of several memoirs, including Iran Awakening: One Woman's Journey to Reclaim Her Life and Country published in 2007 and Until We Are Free: My Fight for Human Rights in Iran published in 2016. She is also the author of numerous articles, essays and books, including Refugee Rights in Iran published in 1993 and The Golden Cage: Three Brothers, Three Choices, One Destiny published in 2011.
Shirin Ebadi delivered the Beatty Lecture on October 16, 2004, titled "Democracy: The Precondition to Peace".
Watch the original Farsi language version on YouTube here.
Download a PDF of Shirin Ebadi's Beatty Lecture 
here .
Transcript: McGill University Archives
Image: United Nations Photo Library, photographer, Mike Garten
