Iran seizes Shirin Ebadi's assets, confiscating Nobel Prize

Increasing pressure on human rights attorney and Nobel Peace Prize winners Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian government has frozen and seized her personal bank accounts and assets, including the contents of a safe deposit box that contained her Nobel Peace Prize medal and diploma.

Ebadi has criticized Iran's disputed election and the subsequent treatment of protesters, and has called on the UN to investigate related human rights violations. 

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere expressed his "shock and disbelief" at the incident. It is the first time in the 108-year history of the Nobel prize that a medal has been seized.

more information: 

BBC

Washington Post

AFP 

Shirin Ebadi's Human Rights Center shut down

The Iranian government on Sunday closed Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi's Center for the Defense of Human Rights in Tehran.

Plainclothes detectives and police entereted the center and shut it down hours before a ceremony was to take place commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We are in touch with three other organizations currently on a strategy for helping and will let you know soon what you can do. 

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