She spent more than ten years of her life locked up in prison, in terrible conditions. Yet no one, not even the oppressive regime in Tehran, has managed to silence her and to make her give up her battle against the repression of freedoms and the systematic violation of women’s rights and human rights. The voice of Narges Mohammadi she gained even more strength from prison and became a disruptive symbol of the great protest movement “Woman, Life, Freedom”, which exploded in Iran in September 2022, after the death of the young Mahsa Amini in the hands of the police.
Graduated in Physics, journalist, vice-president of the Center of Human Rights Defenders in Iran – an organization that fights for democracy and for the abolition of the death penalty, founded by the lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, and made illegal since 2006 – Narges Mohammadi, 53 years old, since 2021 he has been serving almost 13 years in prison in the infamous Evin prison in Tehran, in very harsh, inhuman conditions, 154 lashes and other sanctions, sentences imposed in four separate trials linked to his human rights activism.
In December 2024 he obtained a temporary release of 21 days for health reasons, because the activist suffers from serious heart and lung diseases. After her medical permit expired, Mohammadi did not return to Evin prison in Tehran. But last December 12 she was arrested again while giving a speech at the memorial ceremony for Khosrow Alikordi, a human rights activist and lawyer found dead in unclear circumstances shortly before, in the city of Mashhad, in the province of Khorasan. Together with her, other people, journalists and human rights defenders, were also arrested.
In 2023 Mohammadi she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It was collected on his behalf in Oslo by his son and daughter, Ali and Kiana, twins. As underlined by Amnesty International, which is carrying out a campaign to obtain her release, in recent years the activist has been repeatedly subjected to arbitrary detention, torture and horrible mistreatment. His family reports that the authorities are blocking his access to urgent medical care.
A photo of Narges Mohammadi projected on the wall of the Gran Hotel in Oslo on the occasion of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to her in 2023
(REUTERS)
The persecution against the courageous activist had already begun in 2012, when the woman was arrested for the first time, sentenced to six years in prison, but then released for health reasons. Subsequently, she was imprisoned more times and spent several periods of detention.
In 2022 the BBC included her in the list of the most influential women in the world. Since 1999 she has been married to a journalist, Taghi Rahmani, also a human rights defender, who is also persecuted by the regime. After serving 14 years in prison, her husband moved to France. She decided to stay in her country.
In June 2025, at a time of particular tension between Israel and Iran, Mohammadi once again raised his voice with his country’s regime and signed an appeal, together with other Iranian activists and intellectuals – including Shirin Ebadi and the directors Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof – to ask for the cessation of uranium enrichment by the Islamic Republic, for an end to the war and military attacks between the two countries, and a stop to the massacres of civilians.
