Tehran - Tehran on Tuesday denied having confiscated the medal awarded to 2003 Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi. Norway protested last week, saying it was the first time a Nobel medal had been confiscated by national authorities and summoning Iran's charge d'affaires over the matter.
"Ebadi or her lawyers can check the safety box and see by themselves whether anything was confiscated or not," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters in Tehran.
The spokesman blamed Ebadi and Norway to have politicised a purely legal matter over tax evasion.
"We especially wonder such a reaction from Western states which themselves pay a special attention to tax evasion," Mehmanparast said.
He said that tax authorities took necessary steps after Ebadi failed to show up meetings with them.
Ebadi said that courts in Tehran had blocked her accounts, as well well as access to her safety deposit boxes where she kept her Nobel medal and other international awards.
Ebadi also said the accounts and safety box of her husband - an engineer without any political and social engagements - were blocked by the court.
Ebadi's lawyer in Tehran, Nasrin Sotudeh, said the court ordered Ebadi to pay as much as 5 billion rials (500,000 dollars) even though she is widely known to have worked for free in recent years.
Ebadi has not returned to Iran since the unrest that followed the disputed June 12 presidential election, and is likely to be arrested if she does because of her outspoken opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Islamic establishment.
Ebadi was awarded the peace prize for "her efforts for democracy and human rights, especially the rights of women and children, in Iran and the Muslim world in general."
