Narges Mohammadi

Mohammadi was arrested on 12 December 2025 during a memorial ceremony for lawyer Khosrow Alikordi in Mashhad. She and her family alleged baton blows and a violent arrest; during brief contact, she reported being accused of "collaboration with the Israeli government", a potentially very serious allegation under Iranian law. On 7 February 2026, she received a new combined sentence of seven and a half years: six years for assembly and collusion against national security and eighteen months for propaganda against the government, with two years of internal exile in Khusf and a two-year travel ban.

State of the evidence

Established by a court

Attribution

Protagonist is the victim

Following her February 2026 conviction, Mohammadi experienced a serious deterioration in her health in detention. Her family reported a probable heart attack in late March, episodes of unconsciousness and a severe cardiac episode. She was not admitted to hospital in Zanjan until early May; relatives denounced the lack of access to the specialist care required there. On 10 May, her sentence was suspended subject to substantial bail to allow transfer to Tehran. She left the cardiac care unit on 18 May and was sent home, her family warning that a return to prison would endanger her life.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Protagonist is the victim

Role of the person profiled

Protagonist is the victim

On 4 December 2024, Mohammadi was granted 21 days' medical leave after an operation in which part of a bone in her leg had been removed because of a suspicious lesion. Doctors and supporters considered three weeks insufficient and requested an extension of at least three months. The leave was effectively extended for several months before her new arrest in December 2025.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Protagonist is the victim

Role of the person profiled

Protagonist is the victim

While outside prison on medical grounds, Narges Mohammadi received several indirect messages in June 2025 attributed to Iran's Intelligence Ministry warning her that actors were seeking to "eliminate" her. In July, her lawyer also received a warning to stop interviews, mobilisation and publications. PEN America separately documented a campaign of harassment and disinformation intended to secure her return to prison.

State of the evidence

Documented

In December 2023, a few weeks after she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, a court imposed a further fifteen-month sentence for "propaganda against the Islamic Republic". The judgment also imposed two-year bans on travel, participating in political or social groups, using a smartphone and residing in Tehran or neighbouring provinces after release.

State of the evidence

Established by a court

Attribution

Protagonist is the victim

In June 2024, Branch 29 of Tehran's Revolutionary Court sentenced Mohammadi to an additional year in prison for "propaganda against the state". The judgment cited her call to boycott parliamentary elections, letters to foreign officials supporting political prisoners and her denunciation of torture and sexual assault allegations involving Dina Ghalibaf.

State of the evidence

Established by a court

Attribution

Protagonist is the victim

On 19 October 2024, Mohammadi received an additional six-month prison sentence for "disobedience and resistance to orders". The case followed a protest organised on 6 August in Evin's women's ward against the execution of political prisoner Reza Rasai.

State of the evidence

Established by a court

Attribution

Protagonist is the victim

In early August 2023, a Revolutionary Court sentenced Mohammadi to an additional year in prison for "propaganda against the system". The conduct cited included writings from prison describing sexual violence against women arrested during the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement and appeals to international bodies.

State of the evidence

Established by a court

Attribution

Protagonist is the victim

In autumn 2023, prison authorities repeatedly refused to transfer Mohammadi to an outside hospital despite doctors considering urgent cardiac and pulmonary care necessary, because she refused to wear the hijab. On 6 November, she began a hunger strike against the delay in treatment and the compulsory veil for female prisoners during medical transfers. She was eventually taken to hospital without a hijab and ended the strike.

State of the evidence

Documented

Role of the person profiled

Protagonist is the victim

The award of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize to Narges Mohammadi prompted a hostile official response from the Islamic Republic. Iran's Foreign Ministry condemned the decision as "biased" and "politically motivated", maintaining that the committee was rewarding a person convicted of repeated breaches of the law. The decision also prompted considerable public debate in Iran.

State of the evidence

Documented

Legal status — source text

Not applicable

Attribution

Directly implicated

Arrested in November 2021 while commemorating a victim of the 2019 protests, Mohammadi was held incommunicado and then tried at a hearing she described as extremely brief and without a lawyer. In January 2022, she was sentenced to eight years and two months' imprisonment, 74 lashes, two years of internal exile outside Tehran and several political and media bans.

State of the evidence

Established by a court

Attribution

Protagonist is the victim

On 9 October 2022, Branch 26 of Tehran's Revolutionary Court sentenced Mohammadi in absentia to an additional fifteen months for "propaganda against the state", in connection with her support for families seeking justice and demonstrations. The judgment also imposed monthly police reporting, a travel ban and a ban on membership of political groups for two years, along with cleaning work.

State of the evidence

Established by a court

Attribution

Protagonist is the victim

Mohammadi stated that she had been beaten and sexually harassed during her forced transfer from Evin to Zanjan prison in December 2019. She filed a complaint against prison officials. A new case was subsequently opened against her, and in 2021 she was sentenced to thirty months' imprisonment, 80 lashes and a fine, particularly in connection with female prisoners' protests and her allegations against the prison administration.

Following her March 2014 meeting with Catherine Ashton, then the EU's foreign policy chief, Mohammadi faced new allegations of propaganda and collusion. Arrested in 2015, she was sentenced in 2016 to a combined sixteen years' imprisonment, of which ten years were enforceable for founding or participating in the LEGAM group against the death penalty. The ten-year sentence was upheld on appeal. She was eventually released in October 2020.

State of the evidence

Established by a court

Attribution

Protagonist is the victim

While serving her sentence in the LEGAM case, Mohammadi experienced a series of medical controversies in detention. Requests for specialists were delayed despite serious conditions; after a hysterectomy in May 2019, she was returned to prison before recovering fully and developed an infection amid complaints of inadequate access to antibiotics. In January 2019, she and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe had undertaken a hunger strike against denial of specialist care. In July 2020, UN experts called for urgent treatment following symptoms consistent with COVID-19 and episodes of loss of consciousness at Zanjan prison.

State of the evidence

Documented

Following her arrest and prosecution linked to her activities at the Centre for Human Rights Defenders, Mohammadi was sentenced in September 2011 to eleven years' imprisonment for offences including "propaganda against the system" and membership of an organisation considered a threat to national security. On appeal, the sentence was reduced to six years; she began serving it in April 2012.

Attribution

Protagonist is the victim

In 2009, after working for approximately eight years at Iran Engineering Inspection Company, Mohammadi stated that she had been dismissed on instructions linked to her activities at the Defenders of Human Rights Center. That year, her passport was confiscated and she was prevented from leaving the country to attend a meeting abroad. She reported that intelligence agents had asked her to leave her human rights organisations and sever ties with Shirin Ebadi, threatening further restrictions and arrest.

State of the evidence

Documented

Mohammadi's biographies date her first arrest to 1998, when she was writing and campaigning against Iranian government policies. IranWire reports that after several days' detention she received a one-year suspended sentence; other later summaries state that she spent a year in prison. To avoid claims going beyond convergent sources, the record retains the arrest and one-year sentence while noting uncertainty as to whether the sentence was actually served.

Attribution

Directly implicated