Nobel Peace laureate Narges Mohammadi jailed in Iranian prison for opposing the hijab and death penalty goes on hunger strike inside jail

• Narges Mohammadi, 51, is serving multiple sentences in Tehran’s Evin prison

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi began a hunger strike on Monday over being blocked from accessing medical care and to protest the country’s mandatory headscarves for women, a campaign advocating for the activist said.

The activist has spent much of the past two decades in and out of jail for her campaign against the mandatory hijab for women and the death penalty

She is currently serving multiple sentences in Tehran’s Evin prison, amounting to 12 years. Charges include spreading propaganda against the state.

In the days prior to the announcement of her hunger strike, Ms Mohammadi’s family said that she is suffering from blockages in three veins and lung pressure. 

Despite that, they said, prison officials refused to take her to the hospital due to her refusal to wear the hijab. 

Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year (Magali Girardin/Keystone via AP, File)

Ms Mohammadi, 51, a journalist, was honoured with the prestigious award ‘for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all,’ according to Berit Reiss-Andersen, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.

The decision by Ms Mohammadi, 51, increases pressure on Iran’s theocracy over her incarceration, a month after being awarded the Nobel for her years of activism despite a decades-long campaign by the government targeting her.

From her cell, Mohammadi has continued to rally against the state, organising inmates and even managing to smuggle out an article, published in the New York Times, Reiss-Andersen said. 

The mother-of-two was handed a sentence of 80 lashes and 30 months in prison in 2021 after being found guilty of ‘propaganda against the system’ of the Islamic republic for condemning Iran’s use of capital punishment.

Meanwhile, another incarcerated activist, lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, reportedly needs medical care she has yet to receive. She was arrested while attending a funeral for a teenage girl who died under disputed circumstances in Tehran’s Metro while not wearing a hijab.

The Free Narges Mohammadi campaign, citing a statement from her family abroad, said she sent a message from Evin Prison on Monday and ‘informed her family that she started a hunger strike several hours ago’.

It said Ms Mohammadi and her lawyer have sought her transfer to a specialist hospital for heart and lung care for weeks.

The family’s statement said: ‘Narges went on a hunger strike today … protesting two things: The Islamic Republic’s policy of delaying and neglecting medical care for sick inmates, resulting in the loss of the health and lives of individuals. The policy of ‘death’ or ‘mandatory hijab’ for Iranian women’.

She is currently serving multiple sentences in Tehran’s Evin prison, amounting to 12 years. Charges include spreading propaganda against the state

It said Ms Mohammadi and her lawyer have sought her transfer to a specialist hospital for heart and lung care for weeks

The family’s statement said: ‘Narges went on a hunger strike today … protesting two things: The Islamic Republic’s policy of delaying and neglecting medical care for sick inmates’ (Pictured: Taghi Ramahi, husband of Narges Mohammadi)

It added that the Islamic Republic ‘is responsible for anything that happens to our beloved Narges’. It later described Ms Mohammadi as ‘only consuming water, sugar and salt’ while refusing to take medicine.

Activist groups also reported that Ms Mohammadi had begun a hunger strike.

‘Just last week, Mohammadi was denied access to medical treatment at an outside hospital due to her refusal to adhere to compulsory hijab requirements during the transfer to the medical facility,’ the group Human Rights Activists in Iran said.

Mohammadi was arrested in May 2015 when she was spokeswoman for the Defenders of Human Rights Centre in Iran, which was founded by lawyer and Nobel Peace price laureate Shirin Ebadi. 

While serving her sentence, she was moved from Tehran’s Evin prison to a prison in Zanjan, in northwestern Iran, according to Reporters Without Borders.

The head of the Nobel Peace Prize, Berit Reiss-Andersen (pictured) said Ms Mohammadi was honoured with the prestigious award ‘for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all’

Mohammadi was arrested in May 2015 when she was spokeswoman for the Defenders of Human Rights Centre in Iran

From her cell, Mohammadi has continued to rally against the state, organising inmates and even managing to smuggle out an article, published in the New York Times

Iranian officials and its state-controlled television network did not acknowledge Ms Mohammadi’s hunger strike, which is common with cases involving activists there

The journalist had ‘lodged a complaint against her immoral and illegal transfer,’ her lawyer said.

She had also claimed she was ‘beaten and harassed’ in Evin Prison, reports Etemad newspaper.

‘Instead of examining her complaint, justice officials opened another case against my client,’ Mr Behzadi-Rad said.

She was then sentenced to 80 lashes and 30 months in prison in 2021.

Mohammadi is currently serving multiple sentences back in Tehran’s Evin prison, according to the Front Line Defenders rights organisation. 

Iranian officials and its state-controlled television network did not acknowledge Ms Mohammadi’s hunger strike, which is common with cases involving activists there.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment.

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