Nobel Prize laureate Ebadi: Serbia moving in right direction

BELGRADE - Serbia has overcome most of its problems from the past and is now on the road to the EU and moving in a good direction when it comes to human rights and democracy, winner of the Nobel Prize for peace Shirin Ebadi told Tanjug on Tuesday.

It is obvious that Serbia is now moving towards the EU and the values promoted by it. Both the road and the goal are very important and the society is apparently well aware of that, she said ahead of her visit to Belgrade, where she will hold a lecture about human rights violations in the MIddle East.

Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer, former judge and a human rights activist. She won the Nobel Prize in 2003 for significant efforts in fighting for democracy and human rights, especially the rights of women, children and refugees.

Concerning the situation in the Middle East, Ebadi believes fundamentalism to be the greatest problem in the region.

It is like a virus that requires a special base to appear and a special environment to spread and such an environment can be found in authoritary governments and places lacking social justice, she stated.

Considering that most of the Middle Eastern countries are not democratic and have no social justice, such an environment is good for the development and spread of fundamentalism, Ebadi thinks, stressing that the vaccine for the virus is democracy.

Lack of democracy is also the greatest obstacle to the improvement of the situation with human rights in the Middle East, she feels.

Ebadi does not think that Islam is the root of the problem when it comes to repression and discrimination targeting women in that region.

The problem lies in misinterpretation of Islam by people who want that so women's rights...