Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam | |
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| Born | 21 April 1971 |
| Occupation(s) | Professor and neuroscientist |
| Known for | Human Rights activist, neuroscience |
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, (born 21 April 1971) is a Norwegian-Iranian neuroscientist and human rights advocate.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Born | 21 April 1971 |
| Occupation(s) | Professor and neuroscientist |
| Known for | Human Rights activist, neuroscience |
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, (born 21 April 1971) is a Norwegian-Iranian neuroscientist and human rights advocate.
Amiry-Moghaddam spent his first few years in the city of Kerman about 1000 kilometers south-east of Tehran in Iran. He arrived in Norway as a refugee of minor age, via Pakistan in 1985.
Amiry-Moghaddam completed his medical studies in 1996 at the University of Oslo, and later obtained a PhD at the Center for Neuroscience and Molecular Biology [1] in that university. In 2004, he received the King's gold medal for the best medical doctorate at the University of Oslo. Amiry-Moghaddam has been a collaborator to Peter Agre, who received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2003. Amiry-Moghaddam spent one year as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School in 2006.
Amiry-Moghaddam was awarded the Anders Jahre Awards medicine prize for young scientists in 2008, [2] He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. [3]
In 2013, Amiry-Moghaddam was selected by an independent panel as one of the 10 "brightest minds" in Norway. [4] The list was published in the Norwegian newspaper VG.
Amiry-Moghaddam is well known as a defender of human rights. He received the Norwegian Amnesty International's human rights prize in 2007 [5] for his work against the human rights violations in Iran.
Today, he works as a Professor in Medicine and head of the Laboratory of Molecular Neuroscience at the University of Oslo. He is also co-founder and spokesperson for the NGO Iran Human Rights [6] which monitors the violations of human rights in Iran.
Amiry-Moghaddam began using his voice to raise awareness of the Iranian authorities' human rights violations in 2004, the same year he received the King's Gold Medal for best medical doctorate at the University of Oslo. [7] Before the audience with His Majesty King Harald at the Palace, he told the TV2 online newspaper that he would "thank the King for the medal and for receiving me. I would also like to say a few words about human rights in Iran, and consider giving the King a book about everyone who has fallen for freedom in Iran." [8] Later in 2004, Amiry-Moghaddam's efforts in Norway were decisive for Leyla Mafi escaping the death penalty in Iran. [9]
Leyla had been forced into prostitution by her family when she was just eight years old. She became pregnant and had her first child when she was nine years old, and gave birth to twins five years later at the age of 14. [10] She was arrested and received 100 lashes each time she gave birth. In addition to being repeatedly raped, Leyla was sold to older men as a sigheh, or temporary bride, twice. She was just 12 years old when she was first sold to an Afghan man. She was sold again when the sigheh expired, this time to a 55-year-old married man with two children. He forced her into prostitution, receiving as many as 15 clients at his home every night. [11]
Arrested at 17, she was sentenced to death on charges of "running a brothel, acts contrary to chastity, prostitution, incest and giving birth to an illegitimate child" in 2004 when she was 18 years old. Several assessments found her to have the mental age of an eight-year-old child. [12] Amiry-Moghaddam persuaded Aftenposten to cover the case of Leyla. [13]
Aftenposten's Per A Christiansen wrote an article about Leyla's case every day. The case received so much attention that after a week, Norway’s then Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik wrote a personal letter to then Iranian President Mohammad Khatemi and asked for Leyla’s death sentence to be revoked. [14] The international pressure forced Leyla's death sentence to first be delayed [15] and she was later released after receiving 99 lashes. [16]
Amiry-Moghaddam's activism has helped to create awareness of several death penalty cases in both the Norwegian and international media. He was particularly involved in stoning and child death penalty cases and contributed greatly to international reactions by bringing the cases to the media's attention. In one case, the stoning of a woman and a man was stopped after Amiry-Moghaddam brought the case to the media and wrote a letter to the then-Norwegian foreign minister Jonas Gahr Støre. [17] The man who was later identified as Jafar Kiani was stoned two weeks later but the woman, Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, was saved from stoning. [18]
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway.
Capital punishment is a legal punishment in Iran. Crimes punishable by death include murder; rape; child molestation; homosexuality; pedophilia; drug trafficking; armed robbery; kidnapping; terrorism; burglary; incestuous relationships; fornication; prohibited sexual relations; sodomy; sexual misconduct; prostitution; plotting to overthrow the Islamic regime; political dissidence; sabotage; arson; rebellion; apostasy; adultery; blasphemy; extortion; counterfeiting; smuggling; speculating; disrupting production; recidivist consumption of alcohol; producing or preparing food, drink, cosmetics, or sanitary items that lead to death when consumed or used; producing and publishing pornography; using pornographic materials to solicit sex; recidivist false accusation of capital sexual offenses causing execution of an innocent person; recidivist theft; certain military offenses ; "waging war against God"; "spreading corruption on Earth"; espionage; and treason. Iran carried out at least 977 executions in 2015, at least 567 executions in 2016, and at least 507 executions in 2017. In 2018 there were at least 249 executions, at least 273 in 2019, at least 246 in 2020, at least 290 in 2021, at least 553 in 2022, and at least 309 so far in 2023.
Delara Darabi was an Iranian Gilaki woman who was sentenced to death after having been convicted of murdering her father's female cousin in 2003. Although Delara initially claimed that she had committed the crime, she subsequently recanted and explained that her older boyfriend, Amir Hossein, had persuaded her to lie about the incident to protect him. According to Delara and other sources familiar with the case, Amir Hossein was the person who had committed the murder in an attempt to steal from a wealthy member of the Darabi family. She was hanged in Rasht Prison on 1 May 2009.
Mazyar Keshvari is an Iranian-born Norwegian former politician for the Progress Party and a convicted felon who is serving two prison sentences for fraud and violent threats. He was elected as a substitute member of the Norwegian parliament for the city of Oslo in 2013, representing the right-wing and anti-immigration Progress Party, and attended parliamentary sessions from 2013 to 2018 as the substitute of the mandate holder Siv Jensen who has been on leave from parliament during her government service. As a politician he was known for taking a hard stance on immigration, calling for a complete ban on further immigration to Norway, a stop to the practice of accepting asylum seekers in Norway, and the deportation of immigrants convicted of crimes. In 2019 he was convicted of aggravated fraud for defrauding the Norwegian parliament and in 2020 he was sentenced to 11 months imprisonment. He left the Norwegian parliament following his indictment in 2018 and also left the Progress Party in October 2019. In 2019 he was also arrested and charged with making violent threats, and he was convicted and sentenced to an additional four months in prison in 2020.
Hadia Tajik is a Pakistani-Norwegian jurist, journalist and politician from the Labour Party. She served as Minister of Labour and Social Inclusion from 2021 to 2022. She previously served as Minister of Culture from 2012 to 2013. She was 29 years of age at the time and became the youngest minister to serve in the Norwegian government. She is the first Cabinet member that is a Muslim. Tajik has served as a Member of Parliament representing Rogaland since 2017, and Oslo from 2009 to 2017. She was also the party's deputy leader from 2015 until 2022.
Amal Aden is the pseudonym of a Somali–Norwegian writer. She is an author, lecturer and lesbian activist. Aden is substitute member of the Norwegian Press Complaints Commission and has been a contributor to the newspaper Dag og Tid since January 2013.
Human Rights Service (HRS) is a Norwegian foundation established in 2001. The organization is known for its criticism of Islam and immigration, and is managed by Rita Karlsen and Hege Storhaug.
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is an Iranian woman convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and adultery. She gained international notoriety for originally being sentenced to death by stoning for her crimes. Her sentence was commuted and she was released in 2014 after serving nine years on death row.
Iran Human Rights (IHR) is a non-profit international non-governmental organization focused on human rights in Iran. Founded in 2005, it is a non-partisan and politically independent organisation based in Oslo, Norway. The human rights defender and neuroscientist Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam is the co-founder and international spokesperson of the organisation.
Nasrin Sotoudeh is a human rights lawyer in Iran. She has represented imprisoned Iranian opposition activists and politicians following the disputed June 2009 Iranian presidential elections and prisoners sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were minors. Her clients have included journalist Isa Saharkhiz, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, and Heshmat Tabarzadi. She has also represented women arrested for appearing in public without a hijab, which is a punishable offense in Iran. Nasrin Sotoudeh was the subject of Nasrin, a 2020 documentary filmed in secret in Iran about Sotoudeh's "ongoing battles for the rights of women, children and minorities." In 2021, she was named as of Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World. She was released on a medical furlough in July 2021.
Rahim Rostami is an Iran-born asylum seeker who became known to the public in Norway via national TV station NRK in the investigative journalism "NRK Brennpunkt" programs where he in twice appeared in programs focusing on Senjehesten Asylum Seeker Reception Center where he came forward as spokesperson for criticism from the residents. The Brennpunkt programs pointed out unacceptable conditions at this reception center, which was later closed-down.
Norwegian-Iranians are Norwegians of Iranian descent. The first wave of Norwegian-Iranians migrated to Norway as a direct consequence of the political instability that followed the Islamic revolution in 1979. The political climate has since forced many others to seek refuge in Norway.
Liv Jessen is a Norwegian social worker, and former head of ProSenteret in Oslo—an organization that deals with issues related to prostitution.
Leyla Islam qizi Yunusova, better known as Leyla Yunus, is an Azerbaijani human rights activist who serves as the director of Institute of Peace and Democracy, a human rights organisation. She is particularly known for her work helping citizens affected by forced evictions in Baku, on whose behalf she organized several small protests.
Rasul Jafarov is a lawyer and prominent human rights defender in Azerbaijan.
Une Aina Bastholm is a Norwegian politician and former leader of Green Party. She represented Oslo in the Storting from 2017 to 2021 and during this time was the only member of her party with a parliamentary seat. She was elected to represent Akershus following the 2021 election.
Asieh Amini is an Iranian poet and journalist currently residing in Trondheim, Norway. She is a women's rights activist fighting against the death penalty in general and specifically against the stoning of women and minors in Iran.
The Islamic Republic of Iran signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1991 and ratified it in 1994. Upon ratification, Iran made the following reservation: "If the text of the Convention is or becomes incompatible with the domestic laws and Islamic standards at any time or in any case, the Government of the Islamic Republic shall not abide by it."
Ole Martin Moen is a Norwegian philosopher who works primarily with applied ethics and value theory. He is Professor of Ethics at Oslo Metropolitan University and Researcher in Philosophy and Principal Investigator for the 5-year research project "What should not be bought and sold?" at the University of Oslo, funded by the Research Council of Norway.
Lan Marie Nguyen Berg is a Norwegian politician from the Green Party. She currently serves as an MP for Oslo since 2021 and as one of the party's deputy leaders since 2022. Berg previously served as Oslo City Commissioner for transport and the environment from 2015 to 2021, when she resigned following a confidence vote.
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