Narges Mohammadi Wins Nobel Peace Prize While Jailed in Iran’s Evin Prison

Narges Mohammadi, a jailed human rights activist in Iran, won the Nobel Peace Prize, with the Nobel Peace Prize Committee announcing the award on October 6, 2023, at its Oslo headquarters in Norway under the slogan 'Women, Life, Freedom'.

BBC reported that Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo, said the prize is awarded for Mohammadi's fight against the oppression of women in Iran, for the advancement of human rights and for achieving freedom for all.

Al Jazeera

The BBC said Mohammadi is currently imprisoned in Evin Prison in Iran and that the regime has detained her a total of 13 times, convicted her 5 times, and she has spent a total of 31 years in prison and has been sentenced to 154 lashes.

In a statement posted on her personal Instagram, the Mohammadi family thanked the Nobel Peace Prize Committee and said, 'Unfortunately Narges is not with us to share this extraordinary moment.'

On Tuesday, 30 Mordad, UN human rights experts expressed concern that the Iranian government continues to deny timely and adequate access to health care for Narges Mohammadi and other detainees despite repeated requests.

The UN Office for Human Rights said the experts urged Iranian authorities to 'immediately release her and provide full access to medical care without delay for her and other detainees'.

Al-Monitor

The same UN experts said, 'It appears that denying medical care is being used to punish and silence Mohammadi inside the prison.'

The BBC had earlier framed the Nobel announcement as a call for the Iranian authorities to listen to its people, with Berit Reiss-Andersen saying 'A sustainable society, a civil society, needs to respect the rights of every single person.'

In an exclusive extract of writing smuggled from prison in Iran, the Nobel peace prize laureate Narges Mohammadi described the “torture” of solitary confinement and her systematic medical neglect by the prison system.

The Guardian quoted Mohammadi writing, “There is no hardship worse than illness combined with imprisonment,” and added that authoritarian regimes, in her account, “simply wait for the human body to fail.”

The Guardian said her health hit another crisis point this year, with her weight dropping by more than 20kg, and that she was found unconscious in her cell after an apparent heart attack in March.

The Guardian reported she is now being held at a small regional hospital in Zanjan in a critical condition, and her family said her ongoing detention and the refusal of proper medical care constitute a “slow execution.”