Nadia Murad: Meet 1st Iraqi Nobel Peace laureate?

CAIRO- 6 October 2018: After three years of the warm reception and appreciation she received from Egyptian prominent institutions, Iraqi Yazidi woman, Nadia Murad, has received the Nobel Peace Prize, jointly with Congolese gynaecologist Denis Mukwege.

"Both laureates have made a crucial contribution to focusing attention on, and combating, such war crimes," said Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, as she announced the award Friday at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo.

In 2014, Murad was tortured and raped by ISIS militants for three months as a sex slave after ISIS swept through the area of northern Iraq where she lived with her family. She was bought and sold several times, subjected to sexual and physical abuse during her captivity, according to BBC.

Murad is the first Iraqi to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Moreover, She won several awards worldwide from different international organizations and entities to become an icon of struggle against rape.

Murad’s visit to Egypt

In December, 2015, Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi received Murad at the Etahaddiya Palace. During the visit, she expressed appreciation, on behalf of the Yazidi citizens, for Sisi’s prompt response to her request for a meeting.

She emphasized her appreciation for Egypt's significant role in the Islamic world and in combating terrorism and extremist thoughts. Moreover, Murad recounted ISIS’s aggressive assaults on the Yazidis in Sinjar, northern Iraq.

Murad explained that terrorists justify their acts in the name of religion, highlighting the history of peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Yazidis in Iraq.

President Sisi welcomed her in Egypt, reiterating that Egypt fully condemns all forms of terrorism and heinous practices that ISIS carried out. Sisi said that such acts negate the true Islamic values of mercy, tolerance and acceptance of the others.

Sisi asserted that Egypt will remain supportive to efforts that counter terrorism and extremist thoughts, pointing out Al-Azhar's diligent efforts in this respect to introduce the exact values of Islam and refute the perverted interpretations that underpin barbaric acts, which Islam strictly prohibits.

During her visit to Cairo, she met with Al-Azhar scholars to highlight the crimes committed in the name of Islam. She called on the Islamic countries to reject these brutalities and to protect minorities from inhumane practices.

Murad conducted several interviews with Egyptian local media during her trip to Cairo. “Hardest day in my life is when ISIS killed my mother and six siblings and raped me. I can never forget this day,” she stated.

Speaking to privately-owned Al-Watan newspaper in Jan. 2016, Murad said that “I do not care about prizes;I even do not know what Nobel Prize is. I only care about freeing more than 3500 Iraqi women and children from ISIS’s hand.”

In addition, Murad paid a visit to Cairo University on Jan. 1st, 2016, where she gave a magnificent speech, saying that “ISIS used to force captives to pray and then rape us.”

Various awards

Murad was awarded the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize by the Council of Europe in 2016, and called for an international court to judge crimes committed by IS in her acceptance speech in Strasbourg.

That same year, she was also awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament.

She was named the UN's first goodwill ambassador for survivors of human trafficking later that year.