When Shirin Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, the Nobel committee described her as “a courageous person” who is “focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children.”

That’s still an apt description of Ebadi, a lawyer who is arguably the leading human-rights activist in Iran. This week, she signed on to defend Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American journalist convicted of spying for the United States.

In December, authorities shut down Ebadi’s Defenders of Human Rights Center, later storming her private office to seize computers and clients’ documents.

Ebadi, who holds law and doctoral degrees, lectures at the University of Tehran. Her activism has made her the subject of death threats over the years. A New York Times editorial about the Iranian government’s efforts to intimidate Ebadi called her “the woman the mullahs fear.” She has also been a critic of the United States, arguing against foreign interference in Iranian affairs.

She and her team of lawyers have represented many dissidents and victims of civil- and human-rights abuses.

Ebadi’s latest case is shaping up to be one of her most prominent. Saberi, 31, who has worked in Iran for National Public Radio and other news organizations, was sentenced Saturday to eight years in prison for espionage. Her father, Reza Saberi, approached Ebadi’s group for assistance.

President Obama has called for the journalist’s release. And the chief of Iran’s judiciary said Monday that he had ordered a “careful, quick and fair” consideration of an appeal, a day after the country’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Saberi should be allowed to offer a full defense during her appeal.

An Iranian filmmaker, who said he is engaged to Saberi, defended his fiancée as innocent in an open letter and begged Iranian authorities to release her, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.

The letter by Bahman Ghobadi, circulated by an Iranian human-rights group, said Saberi is an intelligent, hardworking reporter who spent virtually all her time doing research. He also said she had long wanted to leave Iran but stayed for him.

Saberi’s father, who lives in Fargo, N.D., but is in Iran to seek her release, said he could not confirm that Ghobadi was Saberi’s fiancé.

Ghobadi is an Iranian filmmaker of Kurdish origin. His films, including the 2000 “A Time for Drunken Horses” and 2005’s “Half Moon,” often deal with the experiences of Iranian Kurds living in the border regions with Iraq, and he has won several prizes at European and Asian film festivals.

– By RALPH K.M. HAURWITZ

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