Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi said in an interview she would donate her 1.4 million dollars (1.1 million euros) in prize money to human rights groups in her native Iran, in particular those concerned with children and prisoners of conscience."I plan to invest the money in humanitarian organisations that I lead in Iran...," the human rights lawyer told the French newspaper Le Figaro in an interview to be published Wednesday.
She said these include organisations defending the rights of children, prisoners of conscience, journalists and arrested students.
Ebadi, who is to receive the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Wednesday, gave Iranian authorities a mixed review on human rights.
"Compared to 25 years ago, I can only see progress," she said. "But in a lot of areas, freedoms are still restricted. Freedom and democracy are not handed to you on a silver platter. Neither are they achieved with American tanks."
Among the signs of "progress," she included "the recent reform of the divorce law, which grants the mother custody of her children until the age of seven," and the law raising the legal age for marriage for girls from nine to
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