Thursday's crackdown in Tehran “was a demonstration of the weakness of the government,” and not a sign that the opposition was weakening, she said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Ebadi praised the opposition for its resilience, despite the threat of government violence.
“The 11th of February was a great victory for the (opposition) Green Movement in Iran,” she said. Despite the danger, “people took to the streets. That itself is very important.” The opposition was left reeling after government militia flooded Tehran's streets and broke up incipient protests called to coincide with government-run celebrations of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which established clerical rule in Iran.
Riot police, undercover security agents and hard-line militiamen — some on motorcycles — fanned out across the capital in one of the largest deployments since Iran's political turmoil began following June's disputed presidential elections.
Ebadi said the Iranian authorities had shown their own weakness in deploying “all their financial and military resources to take over the streets and stop demonstrations.” She said this style of full-on repression suggests the Islamic regime is nearing the end of its rope.
“Under the current circumstances, how can you possibly say that the movement is becoming weaker and the government is becoming stronger?” she said through an interpreter.
Ebadi, who has lived outside her homeland since a day before last year's disputed presidential elections, also rejected criticism from some protesters that a lack of strong leadership had rendered the opposition too diffuse to be effective.
Mir Hossein Mousavi and other opposition leaders “have done as much as they could do, and that is that they have given the people the courage to express their demands,” she said. “They've inspired the people to go to the streets and make their demands heard.”
Ebadi said the international community should impose a visa ban on Iranian officials and those close to them to put pressure on Tehran to stop human rights abuses, including the recent crackdowns on opposition groups.
“I'd like the international community not to issue visas for Iranian officials, delegations representing Iranian officials, their relatives and anyone close to them that wants to come abroad,” she said, adding that such a ban would be more useful than existing economic sanctions. She said those economic sanctions will ultimately hurt the Iranian people more than the government.
She bemoaned the freedom with which “ministers and their families seem to come and go as they choose” in Western countries while those same ministers block Iranians not “representing the Iranian government” from traveling abroad.
Ebadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, was in Norway before a Tuesday seminar at the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights, where she will deliver the keynote address.
