According to Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, the Nobel Peace Prize isn't that important.
But more than 5,000 people turned out at Tehran's Mehrabad airport yesterday to give a tumultuous welcome to Shirin Ebadi as the human-rights lawyer and latest Nobel laureate returned home.
"I feel like a child who has returned to her mother, a drop of water which has returned to the ocean," Ms. Ebadi told reporters before emerging to face a cheering crowd, many waving placards and chanting slogans demanding political freedom in the Islamic republic.
Brushing back tears as well-wishers tossed flowers, she called on Mr. Khatami's regime to release political prisoners and declared that the Nobel award was a victory for all Iranians.
Related Articles
"This award means that the Iranian nation's desires for human rights and democracy and peace have been heard by the world," she said.
Dressed in a red head scarf, Ms. Ebadi, 56, was welcomed by a government delegation that included Vice-President Mohammed Ali Abtahi.
In a statement issued earlier, Mr. Khatami added his good wishes. "Obviously I am pleased that a compatriot has achieved such success," he said.
But he also sought to play down the significance of the 102-year-old, $1.7-million prize.
"This award has been given to her totally on the basis of political considerations," he said, adding that the peace prize was "not very important" compared to the Nobel awards for science and literature.
The President, whose remarks were reported by Iranian news agencies, also warned Ms. Ebadi to act in line with Muslim principles.
"I hope that Mrs. Ebadi, who comes from a religious family and has expressed her love for Islam, will pay attention to the interests of the Islamic world and of Iran, and not allow anyone to exploit her success," he said.
Mr. Khatami, re-elected as president in 2001, is a moderate who has struggled to counter the influence of conservative clerics who exercise firm behind-the-scenes control over Iranian public life.
His comments reflected the fine line he walks between pushing reform and appeasing the conservatives — as well as the embarrassment Ms. Ebadi's award has caused to both camps.
"Formally they will congratulate her," said political scientist Saeed Rahnema of York University in Toronto. "but of course they are very unhappy with her because now she will be a great figure internationally."
Prof. Rahnema said the prize will help protect Ms. Ebadi as she champions the causes of women's and children's rights and greater political freedom. "There are lots of stupid people in the regime that might want to do something, but they will be controlled."
Hard-line commentators have generally branded the Nobel award as a Western ruse to sow division in Iran.
An opinion piece in the conservative Keyhan newspaper said the goal of the Nobel prize was "to embarrass Muslims, and especially the Iranian people."
A banner carried by a hard-line group at the airport yesterday read: "Death to hypocritical scribblers."
But the official IRNA news agency said 178 members of Iran's parliament issued a statement congratulating Ms. Ebadi, saying the prize would "bolster peace and democracy worldwide."
Ms. Ebadi pointedly wore no head scarf at a press conference she held in Paris on Friday after the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced she had won the award.
The first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel award, she was also the first woman to be appointed a judge in Iran. She lost her post after the 1979 revolution installed a government claiming to rule according to Islamic precepts.
She has represented jailed and murdered dissidents, investigated links between the government and political goon squads, and campaigned for changes in family law to give married women stronger rights.
Yesterday, women turned out to greet her wearing white head scarves — a political statement in a country where the government publicly expresses a preference for black.
One placard showed a map of Iran covered with prison bars. Ms. Ebadi was briefly jailed in 2000.
She plans to hold a press conference today, her first inside Iran since winning the Nobel prize.
With reports from Reuters, AP and AFP
