KIDS' CHAMP: Ebadi, a staunch defender of child rights, at her home for street children
When she heard she was about to be arrested, Shirin Ebadi was afraid. It was June 2000, and Ebadi, a human-rights lawyer in Tehran, had been collecting evidence that Iran's hard-line mullahs were behind a series of vigilante attacks on reform-minded intellectuals. Among the evidence: a videotaped admission she had obtained from a former vigilante. This was dangerous information. As a law professor and activist, Ebadi understood the risks; she could be dragged off to jail by the Islamic regime, or assaulted herself. "Fear, like hunger, is an instinct," she says. "It comes whether you like it or...
