atlampa:

Fromt this story: 

“Five years ago on All Things Considered, [Shirin] Ebadi herself spoke about why she didn’t choose to leave Iran. She said, ‘I’m Iranian, I belong to Iran, and I work for Iran so I have to be in Iran.’ Since then, she has left the country. Here, she explains why. ‘One day prior to the elections of 2009, I left Iran to participate in a seminar in Spain,” she says. “Four days later when I had concluded my seminar, Iran was not the country I had left. People had taken to the streets; many were arrested, many were killed. So my colleagues recommended that instead of going back to Iran I should go to the United Nations and tell the world what was going on in Iran. Working on human-rights issues has become almost impossible in Iran.’ “

We encourage all of our follows to listen to this—a great NPR piece on PeaceJam laureate Shirin Ebadi. Go Shirin!