2005 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi captivated an audience for nearly two-and-half hours in Udine, Italy, for the “Vicino/Lontano” literary/cultural festival on May 6th, 2010.
Iranian-born Ebadi is a lawyer who since 2005 has been travelling the world discussing the problems in her native Iran. She was a lawyer and president of a tribunal in Tehran, the first woman to have covered that role, when she had been removed from that position. Facing countless obstacles, she continued though to fight for the rights on women and dissidents. Her Nobel Prize award was recently confiscated, along with the Prize itself. The current government said that she has not paid taxes, even though the hefty award money is tax-exempt. Her major appeal is in favour of Iranian women who suffer the greatest discrimination in her country. She’s a rather small person but packs quite THE powerful punch!
Other guests also included Udine’s mayor Furio Honsell and Prof. Renzo Guolo who is an expert on immigration issues in Italy (in the picture of the four gentleman. Honsell is on the extreme left and Guolo is 2nd from right). They discussed the ongoing problems of immigrants’ integration in Italy. All pics by M. Rimati.
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