TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian authorities have confiscated Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi's medal, her attorney and Norway's government said Thursday, in a sign of the increasingly drastic steps they are taking against any dissent.

Ebadi, a human rights lawyer, won the Nobel Peace Prize, which is awarded in Norway, in 2003 for her efforts in promoting democracy. She has long faced harassment from Iranian authorities for her activities — including a raid on her office last year in which files were confiscated.

The seizure of her prize is an expression of the Iranian government's harsh approach to anyone it considers an opponent — particularly since the massive street protests triggered by hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed June 12 re-election.

Ebadi has criticized the Iranian government's crackdown on demonstrations by those claiming the June vote was stolen from a pro-reform candidate through massive fraud.

Ebadi was out of the country at the time of the vote and has not returned since, saying she is "in an effective state of exile." In the days after the vote, she urged the world's nations to reject the outcome and called for a new election monitored by the United Nations.

In the past months, hundreds of pro-reform activists have been arrested, and a mass trial has sentenced dozens to prison terms.

In Tehran, Ebadi's attorney, Nasrin Sotoudeh, confirmed the medal had been confiscated and said it was seized on a September order from a judge at Tehran's Revolutionary Court. The attorney said she was unaware of the content of the order because the court had not allowed her to study it yet.

Calls to Iranian judiciary officials were not returned Thursday.

— Full story, STLtoday.com/TheWire