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WASHINGTON -- Iran’s leading human rights activist and its only Nobel
Peace Prize winner softened her stance against economic sanctions aimed
at the Islamist state -- even as she abandoned her defense of its
nuclear program.

Shirin Ebadi, a prominent Iranian lawyer now exiled in Atlanta, had been an outspoken critic
of the international sanctions. She said they had hurt the Iranian
people and were a poor substitute for pressure on the regime of
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to restore democracy and freedom.

But at an event Thursday at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, the first Muslim woman Nobel Laureate appeared to give the green
light to economic sanctions. She described them as something more
benign: international trade law.

”Countries have the right to come up with laws regarding trade in
their own country,” Ebadi said through a translator. She compared U.S. limits on trade with Iran to French laws regulating the importation of cheese.

“What has America done? America has limited the work of corporations
within its borders,” she said, noting that companies have a choice on
whether to operate i... >>>