With the money from my Nobel Prize, I purchased an apartment, furnished it, and gave it to two of the NGOs that were founded. One was the Defenders of Human Rights Center; I and a number of other lawyers were working on human rights issues. The other part of the apartment belonged to another NGO against land mines; we helped the people who were injured by land mines.
The police illegally confiscated the apartment. Right now, it's in the hands of the government. Therefore the offices of both NGOs were closed down. Of course we continue our efforts, but it has been a lot more difficult for us to work.
In the meantime, I would like to give a report about the land mines in Iran. For eight years, Iran was at war with Iraq. The war has been over for 20 years, but more than three million hectares of land have land mines. On average, two people every day are either killed or injured by land mines. Unfortunately, the speed of cleaning the land mines in Iran is very slow. If it goes at this speed, it will take 50 years for the country to be cleaned of the land mines.
At the same time, there's not enough support for the people who are injured by the land mines. I had founded the only NGO in Iran for land mines, because the Government of Iran had prevented the news, and even people in Iran were not aware of the fact that there were land mines in some parts of their country. Instead of admiring what I was doing, or appreciating the services we were providing, they told us we were trying to make them look bad.