“The more of us they lock up, the stronger we become,” Narges Mohammadi said a few months ago in an unusual interview with the New York Times. The Iranian woman repeatedly manages to give interviews to international media or publish letters from prison. The 51-year-old will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year for her fight against the oppression of women in her country.
Mohammadi is one of the most well-known human rights activists in Iran and has been imprisoned several times. She is currently serving a long prison sentence in the notorious Ewin Prison in Tehran. During the nationwide uprising against Iran’s power apparatus in late 2022, Mohammadi unearthed a report that revealed alleged torture and sexual violence against dozens of women in the high-security prison.
The activist was also an important voice of the movement during the demonstrations, taking to the streets with the protest slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom”. From prison, Mohammadi criticized the violent actions of the Iranian security apparatus against the uprisings, which were primarily carried out by the younger Iranian generation.
Mohammadi comes from the central Iranian province of Sanjan, where she grew up in a middle-class family. Mohammadi was influenced by politics in her childhood when relatives were arrested after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The execution of her uncle and her mother’s screams and grief were a formative experience, wrote the New York Times, which also set Mohammadi’s activism in motion. Mohammadi has two 17-year-old children, twins she hasn’t seen in eight years, and a husband. The three emigrated to France.
In her commitment as a human rights defender, the qualified physicist campaigned energetically for the abolition of the death penalty in Iran and in the past denounced numerous verdicts as politically motivated. She is also a leading member of the Center for Human Rights Defense in Iran, founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi. The Iranian authorities have long since banned the organization from operating and accuse it of carrying out propaganda.
In 2016, a revolutionary court presided over by the notorious judge Abolghassem Salawati sentenced the well-known activist to 16 years in prison. The verdict is related to her campaign against the death penalty and is based on alleged conspiracy against national security, membership in a banned group and propaganda against the state – allegations that sound familiar to many Iranian activists. After several verdicts, her total sentence now amounts to more than 30 years in prison.
Mohammadi is one of the most important voices among human rights activists in Iran. She repeatedly struggled with health problems and was released from prison in the meantime. The interviews and letters she published from prison were unusual. To what extent the Iranian authorities tolerated this remains unclear. Her social media appearances are coordinated by family members.
Just this summer, the 51-year-old told French broadcaster RFI: “I feel that what I fought for, losing my job, my income, my life and even my children, has borne fruit.” Now all of this is being recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize.
