Paris, France:
Iranian rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi, who has spent much of the past two decades in jail, is the fifth laureate to win the Nobel Peace Prize whilst behind bars.
Honoured on Friday for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran, the 51-year-old journalist and activist has campaigned against the mandatory hijab for women and the death penalty.
She is the vice-president of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre founded by Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, herself a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 2003.
The other four Peace Prize laureates who were imprisoned when they won are:
1935: Carl Von Ossietzky, Germany
Journalist and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp when he won the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize.
Von Ossietzky, arrested three years prior, was the first regime critic to receive the prestigious award.
Adolf Hitler banned all German citizens from accepting a Nobel Prize in any category, angered by the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision. Ossietzky died in captivity in 1938.
1991: Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar
Myanmar’s deposed leader and democracy champion won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize while under house arrest.
Suu Kyi was represented at the prize ceremony by her family, as she feared she would not be allowed to return to Myanmar if she attended. She gave her Nobel lecture in 2012 after being freed in 2010.
Suu Kyi was detained again in 2021 and later sentenced in 2022 to 33 years in jail.
2010: Liu Xiaobo, China
The jailed Chinese dissident won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.
He was serving an 11-year jail sentence for subversion.
No award was handed out, and Liu’s chair was left empty symbolically. His wife, Liu Xia, was placed under house arrest.
Liu Xiaobo died in 2017 at the age of 61 from liver cancer.
2022: Ales Bialiatski, Belarus
Belarusian rights campaigner Ales Bialiatski, jailed in 2021, shared the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize for his work to document war crimes and rights abuse.
He was arrested on charges of tax evasion, seen as an attempt to silence him.
Bialiatski’s wife represented him at the award ceremony. He was sentenced to 10 years in jail in March.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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