Iran’s Nobel winner Narges Mohammadi faces a new prison term of more than seven years

Iranian activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who has been imprisoned repeatedly in her three-decade campaign for women’s rights, was sentenced to a new prison term of 7-1/2 years, a group supporting her said on Sunday.

Mohammadi, 53, was on a week-long hunger strike that ended on Sunday, the Narges Foundation said in a statement. It said Mohammadi told her lawyer, Mostafa Nili, in a phone call on Sunday from prison that she had received her sentence on Saturday.

The Iranian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tehran renewed a crackdown on dissent during nearly three weeks of anti-government protests that started in late December.

Mohammadi was arrested on December 12 after denouncing the suspicious death of lawyer Khosrow Alikordi. 

Prosecutor Hasan Hematifar told reporters then she made provocative remarks at Alikordi’s memorial ceremony in the northeastern city of Mashhad and encouraged those present “to chant norm‑breaking slogans” and “disturb the peace”.

Mohammadi is being held in a detention centre in Mashhad.

“After weeks of absolute isolation and a total cutoff of communication, she was finally able to describe her situation in a brief phone call with her lawyer,” the foundation said.

Her sentence includes six years imprisonment for assembly

and collusion against national security and 1-1/2 years for propaganda against the government. She was also punished with two years of internal exile in the city of Khusf and a two-year travel ban.

Mohammadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 while in prison for her campaign to advance women’s rights and abolish the death penalty in Iran.

Source: Reuters 

--Agencies