Jailed Woman Activist Narges Mohammadi Wins Nobel Peace Prize
Jailed Woman Activist Narges Mohammadi Wins Nobel Peace Prize
Mohammadi, 50, is an Iranian human rights activist and the vice president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC), headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi.
By RMN News Service
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize to Narges Mohammadi for “her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.”
According to the Nobel Prize website, Narges Mohammadi is a woman, a human rights advocate, and a freedom fighter while her brave struggle for freedom of expression and the right of independence has come with tremendous personal costs.
Altogether, according to the Nobel Prize website, the regime in Iran has arrested her 13 times, convicted her five times, and sentenced her to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes.
According to a communique issued in May last year, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) said woman human rights defender Narges Mohammadi was taken back to Qarchak Prison on 12 April 2022 after being released on medical furlough following heart surgery in February 2022. Since then, she has been taken to court and handed additional sentences.
Mohammadi, 51, is an Iranian human rights activist and the vice president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC), headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi.
In October 2020, Mohammadi was released from prison after a 10-year sentence was commuted due to health concerns. She worked with the Campaign for Step-by-Step Abolition of the Death Penalty (known as Legam). She has been in prison since May 2015, after being sentenced in 2012 to six years in prison for her human rights work.
However, in May 2021, Branch 1188 of Criminal Court Two in Tehran sentenced Mohammadi to two-and-a-half years in prison, 80 lashes and two separate fines for charges that include “spreading propaganda against the system.”
BREAKING NEWS
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2023 #NobelPeacePrize to Narges Mohammadi for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.#NobelPrize pic.twitter.com/2fyzoYkHyf— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 6, 2023
She was arbitrarily arrested on 16 November 2021 by Ministry of Intelligence agents who beat her before taking her away to Evin Prison.
On 12 January 2022, according to GCHR, following a five-minute trial with no lawyer, Mohammadi was sentenced to an additional eight years and two months in prison, and 74 lashes on charges of “assembly and collusion to act against national security” and “acting against national security and disrupting public order.”
She was also sentenced to internal exile, a ban on giving statements to the media, using social media platforms, or participating in political groups. She was then transferred from Evin Prison to Qarchak Prison, but returned home after heart surgery in February 2022.
Narges Mohammadi – along with Niloofar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi – has also been named as the laureate of the 2023 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, following the recommendation of an International Jury of media professionals.
