Parvin Ardalan Wins Prestigious Olof Palme Prize
The prestigious Olof Palme Prize for 2007 was awarded to journalist and women’s rights activist Parvin Ardalan. According to the website Change4equality, Parvin Ardalan is a founding member of the One Million Signatures Campaign to Change Discriminatory Laws and the Women’s Cultural Center. She is the editor-in-chief of the online magazine, Zanestan, the official journal of the banned Women’s Cultural Center. Ardalan serves also on Change4Equality’s editorial board. Ardalan has been interrogated and intimidated several times for her social activism.
The Olof Palme Memorial Fund announced that it will award its 2007 prize to Parvin Ardalan for succeeding in making the demand for equal rights for men and women a central part of the struggle for democracy in Iran. As a result, the women’s movment for civil rights and liberties has, to a great extent, spread geographically as well as socially.
In the statement released by the Olof Palme Memorial Fund, Ardalan is named among the prominent figures in Iran’s women’s rights movement who deserves international recognition for her initiatives, which pave a path to democracy and peace in this region of turbulence and conflict.
The Fund’s 2006 prize was awarded jointly to former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, and Sudanese lawyer Mossaad Mohammad Ali for their efforts to bring human rights and peace to various parts of the world.
Below is a list of the Fund’s previous prize recipients:
2006: Kofi Annan of the UN and Mossaad Mohammed Ali of Sudan
2005: Daw Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma
2004: Ljudmila Aleksejeva, Sergej Kovaljov, Anna Politkovskaya of Russia
2003: Hans Blix of Sweden
2002: Hanan Ashrawi of Palestine
2001: Fazle Hasan Abed of Bangladesh
2000: Bryan Stevenson of the USA
1999: Swedish anti-racists, Kurdo Baksi, Bjˆrn Fries and the Parent Group in Klippan.
1998: Independent media in former Yugoslavia represented by Veran Matic, Serbia, Senad Pecain, Bosnia-Hercegovia and Victor Ivancic, Croatia
1997: Salima Ghezali of Algeria
1996: Casa Alianza under the leadership of Bruce Harris of Central America
1995: Fatah Youth of Palestine and Labour Young Leadership and Peace Now of Israel
1994: Wei Jingsheng of China
1993: Students for Sarajevo
1992: Arzu Abdullayeva of Armenia and Anahit Bayandour of Azerbaijan
1991: Amnesty International
1990: Harlem Desir and SOS Racisme of Frnace
1989: Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic
1988: UN’s Peace Keeping Operation under the leadership of Javier Perez de CuEllar
1987: Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa