Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi

In 2003, human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi became the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Six years later, she was forced into exile from Iran. Dr Ebadi has been talking to Louise Hidalgo about the award, her work and the personal price she's had to pay for it.Picture: Dr Shirin Ebadi arriving back at Tehran airport after hearing that she'd been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, October 2003 (credit: Mohamad Eslami Rad/Getty Images)

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Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest, the disastrous D-Day rehearsal, and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.