Shirin Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize two years ago for advocating human rights in Iran and throughout the world.

But in a speech Monday at NU, the first Muslim woman to win the award said her dream of democracy and freedom in the Middle East is yet to be realized.

After she was introduced, the crowd packing the Owen L. Coon Forum rose to its feet to welcome one of the world’s most honored advocates of women’s rights and political prisoners.

Ebadi’s speech was the capstone event of ‘Women & Islam,’ a multi-year series presented by the Center for International and Comparative Studies.

Iran’s law is not committed to the kind of equality that the international community demands of it, emphasizing the state’s continued gender-based discrimination, she said. She said a man can have as many as four wives and can divorce his wife without any justification. A woman’s life, she said, is valued half as much as a man’s in terms of life insurance.

“And these discriminatory laws exist in a country where almost 60 percent of the college students are girls,” Ebadi said. “They are educated and informed, and that’s why there is a strong feminist movement in Iran.”

She bemoaned the state’s restrictions on free speech, recounting that in the last two years, some 90 newspapers and publications were shut down.

Ebadi said these limits to democracy were stunting Iran’s economic growth, as well as contributing to the country’s endemic poverty, low life expectancy and weak per-capita income.

Rupali Sharma, a Weinberg sophomore, said she found Ebadi’s critique of Iran’s statutory discrimination especially interesting.

“There’s clearly a discrepancy between the reputation Iran presents and the reality in the country,” she said.

Ebadi compared the failures of Iran to the undemocratic elements which ultimately destroyed the Soviet Union. The Russian Revolution, Ebadi said, began with powerful ideas, but failed to improve the lives of its citizens because the will of the people went unnoticed or was ignored.

“The Communists wanted to use force to make people happy,” Ebadi said.

tTe fall of the Soviet Union should remain a powerful lesson, Ebadi said .

“This is the same mistake that our religious governments are making,” she said. “Establishing democracy is only possible if the culture of democracy spreads in that country.”

Without directly criticizing the U.S. occupation of Iraq, Ebadi added even countries that claim to support human rights cannot force illiberal states to become democratic.

“Attacking a country militarily does harm to the democratic process,” she said. “Democracy and human rights do not develop unless the people want it.”

Much of Ebadi’s speech focused on improving U.S.-Iran relations. She said the United States should open its universities to Arab-Islamic students to break down barriers between the countries.

In an implicit swipe at increasingly strict U.S. immigration and visa laws, Ebadi asked the United States to recognize that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, should not vilify all Arabs and Muslims.

“The crimes committed by a few persons on Sept. 11 should not be an excuse to deny the young people of Islamic countries to come here and study (in the United States),” she said.

Despite her critique of the U.S. government, Ebadi said most Iranians maintain a favorable opinion of Americans.

“There is a deep friendship between the people,” Ebadi said. “Let us forget about our governments.”

Reach Derek Thompson at [email protected].