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Iranian Nobel Peace Prize Winner Predicts Persian Spring

Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi told Sophie Claudet in an interview that renewed protests against the Iranian government are imminent and that the opposition is working behind the scenes even if the state's crackdown has kept it off the streets. She also gave her views on Iran’s nuclear program, Iranian politics, sanctions and the Arab revolutions.
Iranian Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi delivers her speech, 'The Role of Women in Promoting Peace in the Middle East', at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London February 2, 2011. Ebadi was the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. REUTERS/Toby Melville (BRITAIN - Tags: POLITICS SOCIETY)

DEAUVILLE – Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi spoke to Sophie Claudet last week on the sidelines of the Women’s Forum in Deauville, France. 

Ebadi told Al-Monitor that Iran would soon have its own revolutionary spring. “It is not going to be too long before that day arrives,” she said, warning that the exact timing “was difficult to predict.” An uprising against the government, she explained, is “a function of Iran’s relationship with the United States, Iran’s relationship with neighboring states and the economic situation of the country.”

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