Reuters reports today that Iranian human rights lawyer and 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi is criticizing President Obama for turning a blind eye to human rights in Iran saying, “if Mr. Obama is saying that he wants to press the hand of friendship of other nations, (why) does he choose to press the hand of a country that violates human rights?”
Ebadi also condemns the “show trials” currently happening in Iran for the people accused of involvement in the demonstrations and she said the authorities recently sentenced three people to death in order to intimidate others who are in prison.
“In my opinion, peace has an expansive definition. Peace does not mean the lack of war. Peace is the collection of circumstances that allow human beings to live in freedom and with dignity,” she said. “I hope that the Nobel Prize will help guide his thinking to focus more on the definition of peace.”