Iran’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi hospitalized after health problem in prison

Iran’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Narges Mohammadi, was rushed from prison to a hospital in northwest Iran after his life “catastrophically deteriorated”, his organization said on Friday.

The Narges Mohammadi Foundation said the Nobel laureate had two episodes of total loss of consciousness and a major heart attack.

Earlier on Friday, Mohammadi fainted twice in Zanjan prison in northwestern Iran, according to the source.

He is believed to have suffered a heart attack in late March, according to his lawyers who visited him a few days after the incident.

At the time, she appeared pale, underweight and in need of a nurse to help her walk.

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

“This transfer was made as an unavoidable necessity after prison doctors decided that his condition could not be controlled locally, despite the standing medical recommendations that he be treated by his special team in Tehran,” the foundation said.

Help may come too late, the family says

Mohammadi’s family invited him to be transferred to several treatment centers for weeks.

The organization, citing his family, said his transfer on Friday to a hospital in Zanjan was “a drastic, ‘last minute’ move that may be too late to address his critical needs.”

Mohammadi’s brother Hamidreza Mohammadi, who lives in Oslo, Norway, in an audio message shared with the Associated Press on the basis that his family is “fighting for his 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 prisoners found him unconscious, his lawyers said he told them during a visit a few days later.

After being examined at the prison clinic, the doctor told him that he probably had a heart attack. Since then he has had chest pains and difficulty breathing.

His legal representative in France, Chirinne Ardakani, said at the time that Mohammadi was denied a transfer to the hospital or to visit his cardiologist.

A prison officer was present for all the brief visits by Mohammadi’s lawyers.

He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023

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

His family said in February that his life is getting worse in prison, because of the beating he received when he was arrested in December. He said many men beat him and kicked him in the side, head and neck.

The Nobel committee condemned Mohammadi’s “life-threatening mistreatment” in a statement in February.

“In recent days, his blood pressure has fluctuated a lot, it goes up and down a lot, and today he fainted because of a sudden drop in blood pressure,” his lawyer Mostafa Nili wrote to X.

At first, the prison doctor injected Mohammadi with drugs but he refused to be transferred to the hospital, wanting to see his cardiologist.

A few hours later, Mohammadi fainted again. In this case, the neurologist ordered that he be transferred to the hospital immediately, added the lawyer.

Mohammadi was rushed to the hospital and admitted to the cardiac intensive care unit, “but his blood pressure is still fluctuating,” Nili wrote.

He said the medical officer in Zanjan suggested that his sentence be suspended for one month so that he could receive treatment, but the public prosecutor in Zanjan referred the matter to his counterpart in Tehran.

Before his arrest on December 12, Mohammadi was already serving a sentence of 13 years and nine months on charges of collaborating with national security and propaganda against the Iranian government, but he was officially released in late 2024 due to health issues.

He continued his activism on furlough

During that hiatus, Mohammadi continued his activism through public protests and international media appearances, including a demonstration in front of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, where he was being held.

In February, the Transitional Court in Mashhad sentenced Mohammadi to an additional seven years. Such courts often issue judgments without the opportunity for defendants to contest their cases.

Mohammadi suffered multiple heart attacks while in prison before undergoing emergency surgery in 2022, his supporters said.

In 2023, Mohammadi became the fifth recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize while in prison, continuing to raise his voice in support of the widespread protests that swept through Iran the year before after the death of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the country’s moral police for not wearing the mandatory headscarf.

His appointment angered Iran’s Shiite theocracy, which extended his prison term and later sent guards to torture him and other protesting prisoners inside Evin Prison.

However, Mohammadi remained defiant, and even issued requests to boycott the 2024 election that President Masoud Pezeshkian won.

He believes that one day Iran’s government will change due to popular pressure.