Iranian Nobel Prize winner Narges Mohammadi has been arrested again by the Iranian authorities. According to her foundation Mohammadi, who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2023, was “violently” arrested on Friday, together with other human rights activists and journalists.
They were reportedly arrested by plainclothes police during a memorial ceremony for human rights lawyer Khosrow Alikordi. He would Monday died under suspicious circumstances. The 46-year-old lawyer was suddenly found dead in his office.
Activist, writer and journalist Mohammadi won her Nobel Prize for her role as a figurehead of the Iranian protest movement that is committed to more freedom and women’s rights in Iran. She was, among other things, the deputy head of the Iranian Defenders of Human Rights Center.
Captivity
Mohammadi was unable to receive the prize herself at the time because she was in the infamous Evin prison. According to human rights organizations, detainees are tortured and humiliated there, and medical care is not available.
The authoritarian Iranian regime is known for imprisoning political opponents. Mohammadi, now 53, was imprisoned for a total of more than ten years, including for “propaganda” and “conspiracy against state security”. Last year she was released early for health reasons. She is said to have had a heart attack several times.
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The Iranian authorities threatened to arrest her several times this year, her foundation writes. In July, Iran’s Ministry of Information reportedly warned her lawyers that she could no longer give interviews or promote human rights.
Mohammadi knew she was at risk of being arrested again, but did not want to leave Iran. “Long live Iran,” she shouted after the speech she gave during the memorial ceremony, just before she was arrested.
Women’s rights
Among the other human rights activists detained at the same time were Alieh Motalebzadeh, a photojournalist and deputy head of an Iranian press freedom organization, Hassan Bagherinia, a former university lecturer, and Ali Adinehzadeh, the father of 17-year-old Abolfazl who was shot dead by Iranian police during a women’s rights protest in October 2022.
At the end of 2022, there were months of protests for women’s rights in Iran, after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested for wearing her headscarf incorrectly. Amini died in police custody. In the arch-conservative theocracy of Iran, women are required to wear a headscarf and it is legally stipulated that girls can marry from the age of thirteen (with parental consent, this is nine years old). The protests were brutally suppressed, hundreds of demonstrators were killed by police violence.
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The Peace Prize for Narges Mohammadi is a deserved recognition of extraordinary courage
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