"They Want a Democracy": Iranian Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi on Protests, Regime's Future
We look at the scope, scale and sustainability of the protests in Iran, which have entered their second month, after being sparked in September by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of Iran's so-called morality police. More than a thousand protesters have been arrested, while some children have been sent to reeducation camps. The United Nations said Tuesday at least 23 children have been killed in the demonstrations. We speak in depth with Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, who was awarded the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for her legal work on behalf of women and children in Iran, and she has lived in exile since 2009. Unlike previous protest movements, such as the 2009 Green Movement, she says today's protesters are demanding fundamental change to the country's system of government. For 43 years, people have bottled up all this anger. For 43 years, the regime has turned a deaf ear to the demands of the people, and anyone who said anything against the regime has either ended up in prison or killed or has fled the country," says Ebadi.