TEHRAN, 15 October 2003 — Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi returned to Tehran last night to be greeted by a crowd of thousands at Tehran airport and immediately called for the freeing of all political prisoners. “I hope political prisoners will be freed,” Ebadi, the first Muslim woman and first Iranian to win the prize, told reporters after she stepped off an Iran Air Boeing 747 from Paris.

“This prize is not only for me, but for all those in favor of peace, democracy, human rights and legality,” said a visibly emotional Nobel laureate, who almost fell to the ground in a crush of journalists and ordinary residents who turned out to greet her.

“The world recognizes the fight of Muslim women, and this is my political message,” she said. “My message for Iranians is a message of love, friendship, peace and justice.”

Thousands of people, most of them women, had descended on Tehran airport for her homecoming. As the area surrounding the city centre Mehrabad airport was brought to a standstill by bumper-to-bumper traffic, people were seen abandoning their vehicles and covering the final few kilometers on foot.

Most of the crowd outside the airport terminal were women, clutching bouquets of flowers and pictures of the Nobel winner, and singing patriotic hymns. Most of them were also wearing white headscarves. An organizing committee set up by supporters of Ebadi to plan festivities for her return from Paris had called on women to make the symbolic gesture of wearing white rather than the usual black preferred by the Islamic government.

For her part, Ebadi was sporting a red headscarf. While in Paris, she angered hardliners here by not covering her head as Iranian law demands.

Earlier in the day, reformist President Mohammad Khatami said he was pleased an Iranian had won the Nobel Peace Prize but played down the importance of the award. Ebadi, 56, has long been a thorn in the side of Iran’s clerical establishment - a vocal advocate of women’s and children’s rights who has taken on some of the prickliest defense cases of political activists.

“I am happy that one of our compatriots has won this award,” Khatami was quoted as saying on the official IRNA news agency. But he added: “The Nobel Peace Prize is not that important, the awards for literature and science are more important.”

Khatami is backed by reformists in the Islamic state but has largely failed to make headway since his election in 1997 against hardliners who control the key levers of power. Hardliners in Iran have described the country’s first Nobel Peace Prize as a political move and criticized Ebadi for attending a Paris news conference last week without her headscarf.

Noting that Ebadi was from a religious family, Khatami said: “I hope she considers fully the interests of Islam and Iran and does not allow this opportunity to be misused.”

The double-edged comments by Khatami apparently sought to appease both sides at odds over Ebadi. “This award has been given to her totally on the basis of political considerations,” Khatami told reporters.

Meanwhile, two weeks ahead of a UN deadline for Tehran to come clean about its nuclear plans, Iran yesterday dismissed allegations by an exile group that it was hiding sites from UN inspectors to covertly make an atom bomb.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran, which has accurately tipped off the international community about undeclared nuclear sites in Iran in the past, said Tehran was hiding another facility near Isfahan in central Iran.