OSLO, Norway -- This year's Nobel Peace Prize winner says the September 11 attacks have been used as an excuse to violate international law and human rights.
Iran's Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to win the prize, did not mention the U.S. by name but was clearly referring to Washington and its allies in a speech prepared for delivery at the official award ceremony in Oslo, Norway.
Ebadi, recognized for her fight for children's and women's rights in Iran, collected a gold medal and the $1.4 million award from the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee at Oslo City Hall.
The 56-year-old lawyer said Wednesday: "In the past two years, some states have violated the universal principles and laws of human rights by using the events of September 11 and the war on international terrorism as a pretext.
"Regulations restricting human rights and basic freedoms ... have been justified and given legitimacy under the cloak of the war on terrorism," she said.
Ebadi also slammed Washington for ignoring U.N. resolutions in the Middle East while using them as a pretext for launching a war in Iraq.
"Why is it that in the past 35 years, dozens of U.N. resolutions concerning the occupation of the Palestinian territories by the state of Israel have not been implemented properly?" she asked.
"Yet, in the past 12 years, the state and people of Iraq, once on the recommendation of the Security Council, and the second time in spite of U.N. Security Council opposition, were subjected to attack, military assault, economic sanctions, and ultimately, military occupation?"
U.S. President George W. Bush's administration launched the Iraq war in March saying President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. But the war did not have explicit backing from the Security Council.
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