Iran arrests Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi, supporters say

Narges Mohammadi in her apartment in Tehran, Iran, on January 23. (Nooshin Jafari/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Iranian authorities arrested Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi on Friday, her foundation said, citing her brother.

The Paris-based foundation said Mohammadi was “violently detained” by security and police forces during a memorial ceremony for Khosrow Alikordi, a lawyer recently found dead in his office. It cited “verified reports” and her brother, Mehdi. She was arrested in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city.

One of Iran’s most prominent human rights activists, Mohammadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023.

In a statement Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee denounced the “brutal arrest” of Mohammadi and other activists and called for her immediate release.

“The Norwegian Nobel Committee calls on the Iranian authorities to immediately clarify Mohammadi’s whereabouts, ensure her safety and integrity, and to release her without conditions,” the five-member body said in the statement issued by its chairman. “The Committee stands in solidarity with Narges Mohammadi and all those in Iran who work peacefully for human rights, the rule of law, and freedom of expression.”

Mohammadi has spent most of the past two decades as an inmate of Tehran’s Evin prison — notorious for detaining critics of the regime.

In December 2024, Iranian authorities suspended her prison term for three weeks to allow her to recover from a surgery she had in November to remove part of a bone in her lower right leg, where doctors had discovered a lesion suspected of being cancerous.

Mohammadi was expected to return to prison soon afterward, but she had remained on furlough until Friday’s arrest. She has been sentenced to multiple prison terms totalling 36 years on charges of acting against national security and spreading propaganda.

Over the past year, she has continued her activism and has been increasingly vocal about the human rights situation in Iran, addressing various human rights events around the world.

Last week, Mohammadi wrote an article for Time magazine in which she said the people of Iran cannot truly experience peace since the state controls every aspect of their personal and private lives.

“Their peace is disrupted by surveillance, censorship, arbitrary arrest, torture, and the constant threat of violence,” she wrote. In the piece, she called for support for Iran’s civil society, independent media, human rights and women’s rights defenders.

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in December 2024, while on her three-week medical release from prison, she remained defiant. “Whether I am inside Evin or outside Evin, my goal is very clear, and until we achieve democracy, we are not going to stop,” she said.

“We want freedom and we want equality. … So, whichever side of the wall I am, I will continue my struggle.”

The Narges Foundation said several other activists were also arrested during the memorial, but information regarding the situation is limited. It called for “the immediate and unconditional release of all detained individuals who were attending a memorial ceremony to pay their respects and demonstrate solidarity.”

Reports of abuse

During her time behind bars, Mohammadi has detailed reports of abuse and solitary confinement of detained women.

In letters and responses to CNN, she has told of incidents of sexual violence against her and other female detainees at different facilities dating back to 1999.

Political prisoners and women held on criminal charges were assaulted by security forces, prison authorities and medical personnel, she said.

The Iranian government has denied the widespread allegations of sexual assaults against detainees, including in an in-depth CNN investigation in November 2022, calling them “false” and “baseless.”

Mohammadi has two children, teenage twins Kiana and Ali Rahmani, whom she shares with her husband, Taghi Rahmani. Her children accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on her behalf.

Rahmani, who was himself held as a political prisoner for a total of 14 years, met Mohammadi when she attended his underground contemporary history classes in 1995, he says. He previously told CNN how his wife has an “endless energy for freedom and human rights.”

Meanwhile, her son Ali told CNN he is “really proud” of his mother. “She was not always with us, but whenever she was, she took good care of us,” he said in 2023. “She was a good mom and still is. … I have accepted this kind of life now. Any suffering that I have to endure does not matter.”