Arya News - Iranian authorities arrested Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi on Friday, her foundation said, citing her brother.
Iranian authorities arrested Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi on Friday, her foundation said, citing her brother.
The Paris-based foundation said Mohammadi was “violently detained” by security and police forces during a memorial ceremony for Khosrow Alikordi, a lawyer recently found dead in his office. It cited “verified reports” and her brother, Mehdi. It’s unclear where exactly in Iran she was detained.
One of Iran’s most prominent human rights lawyers, Mohammadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023.
She has spent most of the past two decades as an inmate of Tehran’s Evin prison – notorious for housing critics of the regime.
In December 2024, Iranian authorities suspended her prison term for three weeks to allow her to recover from a surgery she had in November to remove part of a bone in her lower right leg, where doctors had discovered a lesion suspected of being cancerous.
Mohammadi was expected to return to prison soon after, where she is serving multiple sentences totaling 31 years, having been accused of acting against national security and spreading propaganda.
Over the past year, she has continued her activism and has been increasingly vocal about the human rights situation in Iran, addressing various human rights events around the world.
Last week, Mohammadi wrote an article for Time magazine in which she said the people of Iran cannot truly experience peace since the state controls every aspect of their personal and private lives.
“Their peace is disrupted by surveillance, censorship, arbitrary arrest, torture, and the constant threat of violence,” she wrote. In the piece, she called for support for Iran’s civil society, independent media, human rights and women’s rights defenders.
In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in December 2024, while on her three-week medical release from prison, she remained defiant. “Whether I am inside Evin or outside Evin, my goal is very clear, and until we achieve democracy, we are not going to stop,” she said.
“We want freedom and we want equality…So, whichever side of the wall I am, I will continue my struggle.”
The Narges Foundation said several other activists were also arrested during the memorial, but information regarding the situation is limited. It called for “the immediate and unconditional release of all detained individuals who were attending a memorial ceremony to pay their respects and demonstrate solidarity.”
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