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Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); November 7, 2023: Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi is on a food and medicine strike in Evin Prison after being denied urgent medical care. Authorities are refusing to send her to a hospital under the pretext that she will not wear the mandatory hijab. Narges requires urgent medical treatment for cardiovascular disease.
Expressing grave concern for Narges Mohammadi’s health, Iran Human Rights demands her immediate release and unconditional access to medical treatment.
Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: “The authorities are deliberately paving the way for Narges Mohammadi’s death by limiting necessary medical care. We urge the international community to spare no efforts for her release and urgent treatment at medical facilities outside the prison.”
There is a long history of death in custody of political prisoners due to necessary medical treatment; Baktash Abtin (2022), Behnam Mahjoubi (2021), Mohsen Dogmechi (2011), Shahrokh Zamani (2015), Afshin Osanlu (2013), Mansour Radpour (2012) and Sasan Niknafas (2021) are just some of the political prisoners killed due to medical care denial. Others like Vahid Sayadi Nasiri died due to the negligence of the prison authorities when they were on hunger strike.
According to the relatives of prominent human rights defender and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Narges Mohammadi began a food and medicine strike on 7 November in Tehran’s Evin Prison in protest to being prevented from receiving medical treatment at a hospital.
In a statement, Narges Mohammadi’s relatives wrote that according to specialist doctors, she has pulmonary hypertension and “the two main arteries in her heart are not in good condition.” She requires a CT coronary angiogram and CT scan of her lungs. Narges underwent an angiogram procedure in February 2022 when a coronary stent was inserted into a 75% blocked artery.
Narges Mohammadi was last arrested at the ceremony of slain protester Ebrahim Ketabdar on 16 October 2021, and was informed that her 30 month imprisonment and 80 lashes were now enforceable while in the solitary confinement cells of the IRGC’s Ward 2A of Evin Prison.
On 24 January 2022, she was sentenced to eight years imprisonment and 70 lashes in a trial that only lasted five minutes. She was transferred to Qarchak Prison on 19 January and hospitalised less than a month later on 17 February 2022. She underwent an angioplasty procedure in hospital but was returned to Qarchak Prison the next day. She was sent on medical furlough on 22 February and was summoned back to prison on 7 March. On 25 April 2023, she was summoned to Evin Court to face 8 new charges in a new case brought against her. She refused to appear in court and snubbed the court official who came to her ward.
She continued to regularly speak out against executions, human rights violations and state propaganda from behind bars, publishing statements via her Instagram account. In July 2023, she was summoned to Evin Court for the 11th time for the fifth case opened against her in six months. She has refrained from attending every time, refusing to acknowledge the Court’s legitimacy and announcing that the fabricated charges would not silence her. On 4 August 2023, she was sentenced to another year imprisonment for the charge of “propaganda against the system” for a statement issued from behind bars about the rape and sexual assault of jailed women and a letter to Javaid Rehman, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran which was published by BBC World.
In October 2023, she was awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.” She is currently serving her multiple sentences in Tehran’s Evin Prison.
