The Woman the Mullahs Fear.

Men hold all of the meaningful levers of political power in Iran, but it is a woman they fear. If not, why is the mullah-led government trying to shut down the operations of Shirin Ebadi? Ms. Ebadi, a lawyer and her country's leading human rights activist, is the first Muslim woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. On Monday, the authorities stormed her private office, seizing her computers and her clients' documents. A week earlier, they closed her Center for Defenders of Human Rights, a coalition of human rights groups and other activists whose members had planned to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]