Your Majesties,
Your Royal Highnesses,
Excellencies,
Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I express my gratitude to the honorable members of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee for awarding the prestigious and honorable Nobel Peace Prize to the glorious movement "Women, Life, Freedom" and to a woman, a human rights defender, and a democracy advocate, who is imprisoned. Your meaningful and powerful support is deeply appreciated.

I am confident that the undeniable impact of the Nobel Peace Prize on the recent powerful movement of Iranians for peace, freedom, and democracy will go beyond the strength of individual struggle and resistance, and this gives me hope and inspires me.

I am one of the millions of proud and resilient Iranian women who have risen up against oppression, repression, discrimination, and tyranny. I remember the unnamed and courageous women who have lived a life of resistance in various areas of relentless oppression.

I write this message from behind the high, cold walls of a prison. I am a Middle Eastern woman, and come from a region which, despite its rich civilization, is now trapped amid war, the fire of terrorism and extremism. I am an Iranian woman, a proud and honorable contributor to civilization, who is currently under the oppression of a despotic religious government. I am a woman prisoner who, in enduring deep and soul-crushing suffering resulting from the lack of freedom, equality, and democracy, has recognized the necessity of her existence and has found faith.

In the midst of the flames of violence and the perpetuation of tyranny, our cause has for years been more about survival than the improvement of our quality of life. Essentially, it has become about the possibility to stay alive, survive, and live in a world where human life is exposed, without protection or shield, to the power of arrogant authoritarian governments, and remains helpless against everything.

In the current world, there is a significant and alienating gap between these two situations. We are in the struggle to stay alive. This is our reality. We live that struggle consciously and voluntarily, taking action that may not guarantee a safe life.

Tyranny is an endless, boundless malevolence which for a long time has cast its grim shadow over millions of displaced human beings. Tyranny turns life into death, blessing into lament, and comfort into torment. Tyranny oppresses humanity, free will, and human dignity. Tyranny is the other side of the coin of war. The intensity of both is devastating; one directly, with its destructive flames of visible devastation, the other insidiously and deceitfully, tearing apart humanity.

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