Debate: Award of the Sakharov Prize
Date: TUESDAY, 12 DECEMBER 2023
Speaker: Saleh Nikbakht
Language: EN

This is a great honour for me. I wish Mrs Mojgan Eftekhari herself or another lady could read this message. The rising of Iranian people last year, since the day Jina Mahsa was arrested, this rising was started by women, and women led this uprising – men accompanied them. The result was what you saw, and it was echoed around the air, and the slogan of ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ that started being expressed first in Kurdistan – it took all over the world, and in all over our country, Iran, and over all the Middle East. I read this message on behalf of a grieving mother filled with feeling and motherly love to her daughter. As Mrs Metsola said, she was a beautiful woman who had very high ambitions to serve humanity. She wanted to become a medical doctor. I should say part of this message is in Kurdish. I hope one day we will have translators into Kurdish as well. She is all my heart, She is my life, my blood, There is no space for belief or disbelief, My existence has no reason but her. You are the scent of the essence of spring, You are the delicate fragrance of the rose brought by the breeze from blissful fields, You are the perfume of scorched earth after rain. My darling, through the crack of my darkened window, I look for the eyes of the daughter of light, Of all the songs that time murmurs, I listen to the whisper of the tiny pebbles of the pure source. Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I could be present in your honourable assembly to represent all women of my land, in expressing gratitude for the granting of the Sakharov Prize, the EP’s token of freedom of spirit. Unfortunately, we were denied this opportunity in violation of all legal and human standards. Our attorney, Mr Saleh Nikbakht, accompanied by Mrs Soheila Ghaderi, will represent us and transmit our message to you. We are here in France, in the birthplace of Joan of Arc, to honour Jina’s memory. How magnificent and meaningful is the coming together of these two inspirational daughters of history across centuries. Those who, with their deaths, crossed borders and revived the aspiration for human emancipation and liberty. Jina is the incarnation of life. Her name became a secret code for freedom and spread the dream of liberty from her birthplace, Kurdistan, all over Iran, the Middle East and the world. It set in motion millions of oppressed women and human beings in the hope of a journey towards the endless horizon of salvation. Her life was taken unjustly. They believed that by taking her life they would stop her from being and becoming in the same way as the oppressors believed that by burning the body of Joan of Arc, they would make her dreams disappear in smoke. They did not know and still don’t know that from the ashes of Joan of Arc and Jina, an unbeatable and inspirational spirit will rise like a phoenix. They didn’t know it. They still don’t know. This is the zeitgeist. These two zeitgeists have now joined each other across centuries to announce the good news of eternal salvation. They are the promise of realisation of elevated human values embodied in the progressive slogan ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’, values that rise above borders, time and place: justice, freedom, peace, coexistence and equality of all human beings. Ladies and gentlemen, people of the world, Jina’s grief is eternal to me, and she is undying for people all over the world. I firmly believe that her name, beside that of Joan of Arc, will remain as a symbol of freedom. From the birthplace of eternal Jina, I convey to you my and my family’s endless gratitude, and I hope that you will stand firm and proud by your great choice. Let’s hope that no voice will fear pronouncing the word ‘liberty’. Let’s hope that no voice will fear pronouncing ‘liberty’. Mojgan Eftekhari, Jina Amini’s mother, from Saqqez, Iranian Kurdistan.