Iran Names 11 Candidates for ‘Person of the Year’ Award

The candidates have been chosen out of 40 figures in semi-final through the votes of a jury and public votes.

The jury was composed of more than 30 celebrities from various social, cultural, artistic, political, scientific and academic areas who selected the final candidates within the past few days.

The mission to choose and announce the list of the finalists was carried out by Iran’s Vice-President for Science and Technology Sorena Sattari; Iranian filmmakers Narges Abyar and Mohammad Hossein Mahdavian; lawmakers Ali Motahari, Tayyebeh Siavoshi, Behrouz Ne’mati and Elyas Hazrati; environmentalist Mohammad Darvish; international football referee Alireza Faghani; senior journalist Arash Khoshkhu; writer Morteza Barzegar, and many others.

Public votes collected through the social media also played a key role in this stage.

After all votes were counted, the final 11 candidates with the highest number of votes were announced as follows: (The names are sorted based on an alphabetical order)

Esmat Ahmadian: Mother of an Iranian martyr who creates jobs for women in the southern city of Ahvaz

Mohammad Reza Amouzadeh: A judge from Golestan province who issues cultural verdicts instead of prison sentences.

Yousef Aslani:  An activist in rehabilitation area and an entrepreneur for the disabled

Esmaeil Azarinejad: A clergyman who travels to deprived areas of the southwestern province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad to tell stories to children.

Ziba Azizi: A rural woman from Sistan and Baluchestan province who won the fourth prize of Women’s World Summit Foundations (WWSF) for creativity in rural life

Tannaz Bahri: A physician who has made a reverse migration from the Netherlands to offer services to Iranians

Lo’bat Geranpayeh: Also known as the surgeon of the poor, she has so far visited 54,000 people and carried out surgeries on 1,500 others free of charge.

Haj Kazem Kabir Saber: A fair tea-seller from the city of Tabriz who takes into account the weight of the pocket in which the tea is sold.

Narges Kalbasi: A young woman who has dedicated her life to the lives of the earth-quake people in the northwestern city of Kermanshah.

Mojtaba Mohammadi: A soldier from Khuzestan who did a great job in saving civilians during the terrorist attack on a military parade in the city of Ahvaz.

Noureddin Tavassoli: A shepherd from the central Ilam province who plants trees while watching his sheep.