Attending the ceremony was the Iranian-born President of the Norwegian Parliament, Masud Gharahkhani, who hosted a reception the following day for outstanding Iranian company who had traveled to Norway for the event. They included: the Nobel laureate, lawyer and former decide Shirin Ebadi; the French-Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani; the British actress and activist Nazanin Boniadi; and the French-Iranian graphic novelist and movie director Marjane Satrapi.
Norwegian Storting President Masud Gharahkhani arrives for the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize 2023 to Narges Mohammadi, an imprisoned Iranian human rights activist, at Oslo City Hall, Norway December 10, 2023. REUTERS./
“Honored to satisfy the household of peace prize winner Narges Mohammadi,” Gharahkhani wrote in a publish on X the next day. “@UnitedForNarges within the Norwegian parliament. Strong message from jail to my parliament and for all these combating for democracy and human rights. And many freedom fighters like @Golshifteh @NazaninBoniadi”
Honored to satisfy the household of peace prize winner Narges Mohammadi. @UnitedForNarges within the Norwegian parliament. Strong message from jail to my parliament and for all these combating for democracy and human rights. And many freedom fighters like @Golshifteh @NazaninBoniadi pic.twitter.com/QGstOHlOtH
— Masud Gharahkhani (@MasudGh) December 11, 2023
Gharahkhani has served because the President of the Norwegian National Assembly – or Storting
— since December 31, 2021. He is the primary immigrant to go the Presidium, the Storting’s highest administrative physique, and as President of the Norwegian Parliament, ranks second solely to the monarch within the state hierarchy.
He has been an outspoken supporter of girls’s rights in Norway but in addition in his homeland, Iran. Gharahkhani’s forceful response to the loss of life of Mahsa Amini in September 2022 led Norway’s ambassador to Iran to be summoned by Iran’s Foreign Ministry. Mahsa Amini died whereas within the custody of the Morality Police in Tehran, having been arrested for improperly carrying the hijab.
Gharahkhani’s response, which he posted in Persian on Twitter (which is now X), was speedy:
مسعود قره‌خوانی، رئیس پارلمان نروژ در ویدیویی به زبان فارسی درباره مرگ مهسا امینی و اعتراضات سراسری به آن واکنش نشان داد
آقای قره‌خوانی گفته است انقلاب ایران قرار بود به مردم آزادی و دموکراسی بیاورد و پول نفت آن خرج مردم شود اما نتیجه آن شد مرگ مهسا امینی و جوانان دیگری مانند او pic.twitter.com/aXf4uSixSR
— BBC NEWS فارسی (@bbcpersian) September 21, 2022
A 12 months later, to mark the anniversary of Amini’s loss of life, he posted one other message, in Persian, on X:
“One 12 months since Mahsa Jina Amini was killed after being detained by the Iranian regime’s morality police. We will always remember! Keep combating and supporting the motion: Women. Life. Freedom. My message in Farsi. #WomenLifeFreedom
One 12 months since Mahsa Jina Amini was killed after being detained by the Iranian regime’s morality police. We will always remember! Keep combating and supporting the motion: Women. Life. Freedom. My message in Farsi. #WomenLifeFreedom pic.twitter.com/rIeNWZ5ouI
— Masud Gharahkhani (@MasudGh) September 14, 2023
Gharahkhani additionally speaks out repeatedly towards terrorism and extremism in his public appearances.
On a go to to Ground Zero in New York in November, he instructed the Norwegian each day newspaper Dagsavisen that he believed the combat towards extremism “mustn’t ever develop into only a marketing campaign right here and now, however a combat all of us wage constantly.”
“For me, the Ground Zero go to is a vital reminder that we should rise up towards extremism and hate speech,” he added. “There are threats to our democratic values which we mustn’t ever take as a right.”
Masud Gharahkhani was born in Tehran in 1982 and emigrated to Norway together with his household on the age of 5. His father had been a commerce unionist in Iran, however after they moved to Norway each of his dad and mom began out as strawberry pickers.
His mom would go on to develop into a instructor, and his father discovered employment in native authorities. Gharahkhani himself graduated as a radiologic technologist from the Gjøvik University College. and has been working on the Blefjell Hospital in Norway.
A member of the Norwegian Labor Party from the town of Drammen, he was first elected as deputy consultant to the parliament in 2009. He acquired a standing ovation for his speech about his journey from Iran to Norway on the Labor Party’s nationwide conference in 2011.
During the 2017 parliamentary elections, he received a seat as consultant of the Buskerud electoral district. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Norway’s prime minister on the time, known as him “a unprecedented political expertise” and “a hit story in Norwegian society.”
As the newly elected speaker of parliament on the finish of 2021, Gharahkhani indicated that he needed to make use of his place to strengthen Norwegian democracy, the welfare state, gender equality and civil freedom – values which, he identified, had been missing in his motherland, Iran.
Shortly after his election, he was praised for his openness and tolerance after publicly criticizing an elementary faculty in his hometown of Drammen following an incident throughout which lecturers had banned their pupils from carrying conventional Christmas costumes at an annual Christmas play.
Gharahkhani is a robust supporter of immigrant integration, insisting that immigrant kids should study to talk Norwegian, which he views as an absolute prerequisite for succeeding in Norwegian society.
Gharahkhani is married to Saloumeh “Sally” Abbasian and so they have a son.