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Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703983704576277373280750408.html
The Education of an Iranian Revolutionary
(Wall Street Journal) David Feith - Shirin Ebadi, 63 and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, says that in 1978, as a judge on the Tehran city court, "I really believed that an Islamic Republic would bring us independence and liberty." So strong was her revolutionary fervor that she helped storm the justice ministry. The future, it turned out, was full of 7th-century religious fanaticism and brutal political repression. The Khomeinists kicked her off the bench for being a woman in 1980, mandating that she work as a secretary in the court over which she once presided. In 2000, while reviewing intelligence ministry files, she found her own name on a list of intellectuals to be targeted for extrajudicial killing. She says, "People are very happy about the uprising of the people of Syria....If there is democracy in Syria it's like the arms of Iran are cut off," she says. "The people of Iran would be very happy if Bashar Assad is toppled because that's the beginning of the toppling of the Iranian government."