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Biden Fails a Death Penalty Abolitionist’s Most Important Test

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The mystery of Joe Biden’s views about capital punishment has finally been solved. His decision to grant clemency to 37 of the 40 people on federal death row shows the depth of his opposition to the death penalty. And his decision to leave three of America’s most notorious killers to be executed by a future administration shows the limits of his abolitionist commitment. The three men excluded from Biden’s mass clemency—Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Robert Bowers—would no doubt pose a severe test of anyone’s resolve to end the death penalty. Biden failed that test.
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Iranian women's rights activist Narges Mohammadi wins 2023 Nobel Peace Prize

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"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize to Narges Mohammadi for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all," the committee said in its citation.

Mohammadi is one of Iran's leading human rights activists, who has campaigned for women's rights and the abolition of the death penalty.

She is currently serving multiple sentences in Tehran's Evin Prison amounting to about 12 years imprisonment, according to the Front Line Defenders rights organisation, one of the many periods she has been detained behind bars. 

Charges include spreading propaganda against the state.

She is the deputy head of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, a non-governmental organisation led by Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Mohammadi is the 19th woman to win the 122-year-old prize and the first one since Maria Ressa of the Philippines won the award in 2021 jointly with Russia's Dmitry Muratov.

The Nobel Peace Prize, worth 11 million Swedish crowns, or around $1 million, will be presented in Oslo on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will.

Source: Reuters, Staff, October 6, 2023

Iran Human Rights Welcomes Narges Mohammadi’s Nobel Peace Prize Win


Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); October 6, 2023: Iran Human Rights welcomes the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to HRD Narges Mohammadi and hopes it will draw the international community’s attention to the Iranian people’s struggle for their fundamental human rights.

Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: “For more than 25 years, Narges Mohammadi has been fighting against gender apartheid, the death penalty and discrimination against minorities, and paid the price for it. Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Narges is a recognition of the Iranian people’s struggle for their fundamental rights. Awarding it on the day that Armita Geravand is fighting for her life in a coma because of flouting mandatory hijab laws, is a reminder of the oppression that Iranian girls and women face on a daily basis by the Islamic Republic.”


Source: Iran Human Rights, Staff, October 6, 2023


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde
Location: Iran
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