FIJ
Narges Mohammadi, the Iranian human rights advocate who won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, is currently serving a prison sentence of 10 years and 9 months.
Her country’s government had accused her of actions against national security and propaganda against the state, revealed a report by the CNN.
According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, the awarding body, Mohammadi won this year’s prize because of her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.
“Her brave struggle has come with tremendous personal costs. Altogether, the regime has arrested her 13 times, convicted her five times and sentenced her to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes,” the committee said.
Berit Reiss-Andersen, the head of the awarding body, made the above statement while making the announcement on Friday. With this announcement, Mohammadi becomes the 19th woman to win the prize.
WHO IS NARGES MOHAMMADI?
The committee’s statement, in addition to checks by FIJ, reveals that the recipient of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize has not had it easy in her advocacy for human rights.
Mohammadi was born in Iran on April 21, 1972. She holds a degree in physics and wrote columns for reformist Iranian newspapers in the 1990s.
She is one of the leading human rights activists in Iran, and her advocacy borders on women’s rights and the abolition of the death penalty.
She is the vice president of the Defenders of Human Right Centre (DHRC), an Iranian human rights organisation that provides pro-bono services to protect citizens’ rights and seek rights-based law reforms. She joined the DHRC in 2003.
ARRESTED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 1998
Mohammadi was first arrested in 1998 for her criticisms of the Iranian government and spent a year in prison.
In April 2010, the Islamic Revolutionary Court summoned her for her membership in the DHRC. Although she was briefly released on bail, she was re-arrested several days later and detained at Evin prison.
She was released to go to the hospital after a month because of her declining health while in custody.
Mohammadi was prosecuted again in July 2011. She was found guilty of “acting against the national security, membership of the DHRC and propaganda against the regime”.
She was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment in September of that year, and she appealed it. Though the country’d appeal court upheld the sentence in 2012, it was reduced to six years.
She was later arrested to begin her prison sentence on April 26, but she was released on July 31, 2012.
Mohammadi’s May 2015 arrest led to a 10-year sentence in relation to her activism against the death penalty.
However, this did not deter her activism as she spoke out against human rights abuses against political prisoners even while inside the Evin prison.
She was released from prison on October 8, 2020.
2021
In February 2021, she disclosed her refusal to attend court summonses related to a case initiated during her imprisonment.
Later in May, a court in Tehran sentenced her to two-and-a-half years in prison, 80 lashes and fines for charges like “spreading propaganda against the system”. When she received a summons to start serving the sentence four months later, she did not respond because she deemed the conviction unjust.
On November 16, 2021, she was arrested during a memorial for Ebrahim Ketabdar, who was killed by Iranian security forces during a protest in 2019.
