The Iranian regime does not stop and condemns the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Narges Mohammadi (on hunger strike since early February) to over seven years in prison, while Tehran represses all dissent after national protests and the death of thousands of people at the hands of security forces.
New sentences against Mohammadi which come at a very delicate moment, when Iran has said it is willing to negotiate with the United States on its military nuclear program.
Mohammadi’s lawyer, Mostafa Niliconfirmed the ruling on X, stating that it had been issued by a revolutionary court in the city of Mashhad. These are courts, CNN explains, that typically issue verdicts with little or no opportunity for defendants to challenge what they are accused of.
She was sentenced to six years in prison for ‘gathering and collusion’ and a year and a half for propaganda and a two-year travel ban, she wrote.
In addition, Narges will have to serve another two years of internal exile in the city of Khosf, about 740 kilometers south-east of Tehran.
The hunger strike
Last February 8, the Foundation dedicated to her announced that Mohammadi had started a new hunger strike to denounce what she considers to be illegitimate detention and the serious conditions in which she is forced to live in prison. In fact, she is denied her fundamental rights: she cannot telephone, meet her lawyers or receive visitors.
His clinical picture is particularly serious. The note released by the Foundation talks about heart attacks, chest pain, hypertension, spinal problems and other pathologies. Continued detention, it is underlined, represents a real risk to his life and a violation of human rights standards. For this reason, it is essential that they have continuous access to medical care and their healthcare team, a guarantee that is often not guaranteed in the prisons of the Islamic Republic.
We fear deeply for her life, said her son Ali Rahmani from Paris, who together with his sister leads the Foundation named after his mother.
According to the activist’s supporters, preventing her from communicating with the outside means silencing one of the most authoritative critical voices in the country.
Narges Mohammadi received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 for her more than twenty years of commitment to defending human rights, particularly those of women in Iran. In 2022 he openly supported the protests that erupted after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, arrested for wearing the veil in a manner deemed incorrect.
During his civil battle he often resorted to forms of non-violent protest, including demonstrations, sit-ins and hunger strikes. Precisely because of her detention, the Nobel was awarded to her in absentia. The recipients of the award in Oslo were her twin children, Kiana and Ali Rahmani, then seventeen, who read a message smuggled out of Evin prison:
The Iranian people, with perseverance, will overcome repression and authoritarianism. Have no doubts: it will happen.
