Iranian Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi hospitalized after a health crisis in prison

Prominent Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi attends a meeting on women's rights in Tehran, Iran, Aug. 27, 2007. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

BEIRUT — Iran’s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has been urgently transferred from prison to a hospital in northwestern Iran after a “catastrophic deterioration” of her health, her foundation said Friday.

The Narges Mohammadi Foundation said the Nobel Prize laureate had two episodes of complete loss of consciousness and a severe cardiac crisis.

Earlier Friday, Mohammadi had fainted twice in prison in Zanjan in northwestern Iran, according to the foundation. She was believed to have suffered a heart attack in late March, according to her lawyers who visited her a few days after the incident. At the time, she appeared pale, underweight and needed a nurse to help her walk.

The hospital transfer comes “after 140 days of systematic medical neglect,” since her arrest on Dec. 12, the foundation said.

“This transfer was done as an unavoidable necessity after prison doctors determined her condition could not be managed on-site, despite standing medical recommendations that she be treated by her specialized team in Tehran,” the foundation said.

Help may be little too late, family says

Mohammadi’s family had advocated for her transfer to adequate medical facilities for weeks.

The foundation, quoting her family, said her transfer Friday to a hospital in Zanjan was “a desperate, ‘last-minute’ action that may be too late to address her critical needs.”

Mohammadi’s brother Hamidreza Mohammadi, who lives in Oslo, Norway, said in an audio message shared with The Associated Press by the foundation that her family is “fighting for her life.”

“My family in Iran is doing everything they can. But the prosecutors in Zanjan are blocking everything,” he said.

On March 24, Narges Mohammadi’s fellow inmates found her unconscious, her lawyers said she told them during the visit a few days later. Upon later examination at the prison’s clinic, a doctor told her that she probably had had a heart attack. She had chest pain and breathing difficulties since.

Her legal representative in France, Chirinne Ardakani, said at the time that Mohammadi had been denied transfer to the hospital or to visit her cardiologist. A prison official was present throughout the brief visit by Mohammadi’s lawyers.

Won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023

Mohammadi, 53, a rights lawyer who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 while in prison, was arrested in December during a visit to the eastern Iranian city of Mashhad and sentenced to seven more years in prison.

Her family said in February that her health was worsening in prison, in part because of a beating she endured during her arrest in December. He said multiple men hit and kicked her in her side, head and neck. The Nobel committee condemned the “ongoing life-threatening mistreatment” of Mohammadi in a statement in February.

“In recent days, her blood pressure has experienced severe fluctuations, going very high and low, and today she suddenly fainted due to a sudden drop in blood pressure,” her lawyer Mostafa Nili posted on X.

At first, the prison doctor injected Mohammadi with drugs but she refused to be transferred to a hospital, demanding to see her cardiologist. A few hours later, Mohammadi fainted again. This time a neurologist ordered her immediate transfer to a hospital, the lawyer added.

Mohammadi was urgently transferred to the hospital and admitted to the cardiac care unit, “but her blood pressure continues to fluctuate severely,” Nili wrote. He said a medical official in Zanjan recommended a one-month suspension of her sentence for treatment, but the public prosecutor in Zanjan referred the matter to his counterpart in Tehran.

Prior to her arrest Dec. 12, Mohammadi had already been serving a sentence of 13 years and nine months on charges of collusion against state security and propaganda against Iran’s government, but had been released on furlough since late 2024 over medical concerns.

Continued her activism on furlough

During that furlough, Mohammadi kept up her activism with public protests and international media appearances, including demonstrating in front of Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, where she had been held.

In February, a Revolutionary Court in Mashhad sentenced Mohammadi to an additional seven years. Such courts typically issue verdicts with little or no opportunity for defendants to contest their charges.

Mohammadi suffered multiple heart attacks while imprisoned before undergoing emergency surgery in 2022, her supporters say.

In 2023, Mohammadi became the fifth laureate to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while in prison, further amplifying her voice in support of widespread protests that swept Iran after the death the year before of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the country’s morality police for not properly wearing the mandatory headscarf.

Her selection enraged Iran’s hard-line Shiite theocracy, which increased her prison time and later sent guards to rough her up along with other prisoners who were protesting inside Evin Prison.

Yet Mohammadi remained defiant, even issuing boycott calls for the 2024 election that President Masoud Pezeshkian won. She maintained that one day Iran’s government would change due to popular pressure.

Sarah El Deeb, The Associated Press