Photo: Narges Mohammadi Foundation Agence France-Presse Narges Mohammadi has been imprisoned in Iran since November 2021.
Published at 6:32 a.m. Updated at 8:14 a.m.
- Middle East
Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who has been imprisoned in Tehran since November 2021, was temporarily released from prison on Wednesday for medical reasons, according to her lawyer.
The 52-year-old activist has been convicted and imprisoned many times for 25 years for her work against the compulsory veil for women and the death penalty.
She has spent a large part of the last decade in prison.
“According to the opinion of the medical examiner, the Tehran prosecutor's office has suspended the execution of Narges Mohammadi's sentence for three weeks,” said her lawyer, Mostafa Nili, specifying that the activist “has been released from prison.”
“The reason for her release is her physical condition after the removal of a tumor and a bone graft performed 21 days ago,” added Nili on the social network X, blocked in Iran.
The temporary release of Narges Mohammadi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023, is “insufficient”, her support committee reacted from Paris.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000“After a decade of imprisonment, Narges needs specialized medical care in a safe environment,” the Narges Mohammadi Foundation said in a statement.
Narges Mohammadi is serving a sentence in the women’s ward of Evin Prison in northern Tehran, with about 50 other prisoners, according to her husband Taghi Rahmani.
Considered a “prisoner of conscience” by Amnesty International, this elegant woman with curly black hair has barely seen her children, Kiana and Ali, grow up, who have not seen her since 2015 and live in France.
While imprisoned, she was unable to receive the Nobel Prize awarded to her for her fight against the death penalty. dead.
In June, the Iranian activist was sentenced to another year in prison for “propaganda against the state.”
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Combative in prison
She had refused to attend the hearing of her trial after having requested, without success, that it be opened to the public.
In early November, she had supported an Iranian student arrested after undressing in public in front of a university in Tehran.
The student “turned her body into a symbol of dissent,” Mohammadi said, calling for “her release and an end to the harassment of women” in Iran.
In March, the activist released an audio message from prison denouncing a “full-scale war against women” in the Islamic Republic. She also fights behind bars against sexual violence in detention.
In Iran, women have been required to respect a strict dress code that requires them to cover their hair in public places since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Born in 1972 in Zanjan, in the northwest of Iran, Narges Mohammadi studied physics before becoming an engineer.
She also worked in journalism for reformist media outlets.
In the 2000s, Ms. Mohammadi joined the Human Rights Defenders Center (of which she is still vice-president), founded by Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2003.
Narges Mohammadi had already been imprisoned between May 2015 and October 2020 for having “formed and led an illegal group” calling for the abolition of the death penalty in Iran.