The jailed Nobel laureate’s life is at risk if he is not released from Iranian custody, a Nobel committee official said.
Listen to this article
Average 3 minutes
The audio version of this article was created by AI-based technology. It can be mispronounced. We are working with our partners to continuously review and improve the results.
The head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said on Saturday that the life of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi was in the hands of Iranian authorities after his condition “deteriorated,” and called for his release from his dedicated medical team.
Mohammadi was moved from prison to hospital on Friday following a “catastrophic deterioration in his health, including two episodes of seizures and a major heart attack,” a foundation run by his family said.
The Narges Mohammadi Foundation said the transfer was “an unavoidable necessity after prison doctors determined that his condition could not be managed locally.”
Mohammadi, who is in his 50s, won the Nobel Peace Prize while in prison for his campaign to promote women’s rights and end the death penalty in Iran. He suffered a suspected heart attack in late March, his family said.
In an update Saturday, the foundation said he remains in stable condition on oxygen. He had to be transferred to a hospital in Tehran for special examination and treatment.
Reuters could not independently confirm his condition.
File a complaint with the Iranian authorities
Iranian authorities must release Mohammadi from his dedicated medical team for immediate treatment as his life is at risk, said Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chairman of the Nobel Committee, which awards the Nobel Peace Prize.
“He has been arrested for his peaceful human rights work. His life is now in the hands of the Iranian authorities,” he told Reuters on Saturday.
Mohammadi was sentenced to a new sentence of seven and a half years, the foundation said in February, weeks before the US and Israel began their war with Iran. The Nobel committee at the time asked Tehran to release him immediately.
The children of imprisoned Iranian women’s rights activist Narges Mohammadi accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf on Sunday. They read a defiant letter that Mohammadi smuggled out of his cell, saying to continue resisting the regime.
He was arrested in December after confessing to the murder of a lawyer, Khosrow Alikordi; Prosecutor Hasan Hematifar told reporters he then made offensive remarks at Alikordi’s memorial service.
On Friday morning, Mohammadi collapsed after days of dangerous blood pressure and severe nausea, the foundation said. After vomiting several times, he blacked out and was taken to the prison’s medical unit for emergency intravenous fluids.
The activist, who underwent three angioplasty procedures, is facing a “direct and immediate” risk to his right to life, his family said. “We call for all charges to be dropped immediately and all sentences handed down for his peaceful human rights work to be dropped unconditionally.”
