Nobel laureate transferred to prison in northern Iran without warning | Iran
Iranian authorities transferred Nobel peace laureate Narges Mohammedi to a prison in the country’s north without prior warning amid growing concerns about her health, her family said on Saturday.
Mohammedi, who won the peace prize in 2023 for his more than two decades of campaigning, was arrested after speaking out against Iran’s religious authorities at a funeral in the eastern city of Mashhad on December 12.
He went on hunger strike earlier this month and was hospitalized before being sent back to prison.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said this week it was “deeply appalled” by reports detailing “physical abuse and ongoing life-threatening ill-treatment” during Mohammadi’s arrest and detention.
Following his arrest, Muhammadi was held at the intelligence ministry’s detention facility in Mashhad.
But her husband, Taghi Rahmani, who lives in Paris, said she had now been transferred to a prison in the northern city of Zanjan.
“This action was carried out without informing his family or lawyer,” he told X in a statement, adding that he “intends to exile and displace Narges.”
Mohammadi’s foundation, run by his supporters and family, said he was transferred on Tuesday but was only able to reveal the news in a phone call with his Iranian lawyer Mostafa Nili on Saturday.
He has been allowed only one phone call to a brother in Iran since his arrest in December, and now only two more phone calls to his Iranian lawyer.
Nili wrote the following in his post on
“These blows resulted in dizziness, double vision and blurred vision. His body was left with bruises and traces of serious physical assault,” he added.
Mohammadi was arrested before nationwide protests broke out in late December. The movement reached its peak in January, when authorities launched a crackdown that activists say led to the deaths of thousands of people.
Earlier this month, he was sentenced to an additional six years in prison on charges of harming national security and a year and a half in prison for making propaganda against Iran’s Islamic system. He also went on a hunger strike for almost a week to protest the conditions of his detention.
Over the past quarter-century, Mohammedi, 53, has been repeatedly tried and imprisoned for his campaign against Iran’s death penalty and mandatory dress code for women.
He was born in Zanjan but resided in Tehran. His foundation said he was transferred to Zanjan prison, where he had been mistreated twice during his previous prison sentence.
