Shirin Edabi is an Iranian lawyer, human rights campaigner and democracy activist. In 1975, she became the first woman judge in Iran, but, 4 years later, conservative Islamic clerics forced her demotion to a secretarial post. Her applications to practice as a lawyer were repeatedly denied over the ensuing years, and it was not until 1992 that she was able to resume legal practice. She now lectures in law at Tehran University, and campaigns around the legal status of women and children in Iran.
Whilst unable to practice law, Shirin Ebadi wrote several books and articles, and, after 1992 began to act for the defence in a number of high-profile cases, particularly those with a political flavour. In 2000, she was charged with distributing a banned videotape of a former member of the secret police accusing former colleagues of various crimes - she had sent the tape to the President and to the head of the Judiciary. She was sentenced to 5 years in prison and her licence to practice law was again revoked, and although both sentences were lifted by the Appeal Court she still served 25 days in solitary confinement.
She has founded two organisations in Iran to further her objectives: the Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child, and the Defenders of Human Rights Centre. She has campaigned hard for children to be treated as people, not possessions, and for women's rights.
In 2003 she was awared the Nobel Peace Prize for her work, although this was controversial and barely reported in Iran - particularly since she refused to cover her head for the ceremony. Since then she has continued to work on human rights cases, to write, and to tour and lecture. Although she is opposed to external interference in her country, she has recently said that the situation in Iran is worsening, and that she herself is under greater threat than before. 'How can you defy fear?' she says. 'Fear is a human instinct, just like hunger. ... But I have trained myself to live with this fear. ... if I discontinue my work I will have succumbed to my fears.'