Iran shutters office of Nobel Prize winner

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian authorities shut down the office of a human rights group led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi on Sunday as the group was preparing to honor a political activist who spent 17 years in prison in the Islamic republic.

Iranian authorities banned Ebadi's Center for Protecting Human Rights last year, but it had continued to operate from an office in the north of the capital, Tehran.

Ebadi said police in uniform and plain-clothes security officials raided and sealed the building where her group was working without presenting a warrant. No arrests were reported.

Ebadi said her group would continue its work despite the raid.

We will meet again somewhere else and will continue to support the rights of activists and political prisoners, she told The Associated Press.