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The family of Iranian Nobel Peace laureate Narges Mohammadi says she remains in critical care after being transferred to a Tehran hospital as a result of “intensified international pressure” over her deteriorating health.
Mohammadi was transferred from Zanjan medical centre to Pars Hospital in Tehran on Sunday, more than a week after collapsing in prison, the family-run Narges Mohammadi Foundation said in a statement Monday.
The foundation said the 54-year-old rights activist — who had been jailed since December in Zanjan prison — has been granted a suspension of her prison sentence on bail.
Her husband, Taghi Rahmani, said her current condition is “very dangerous.”
“Narges is suffering from various complications as a result of the beatings she has endured, the 150 days she spent confined in a closed Ministry of Intelligence room, and the authorities’ neglect,” Rahmani said in a statement to CBC News on Monday.
“This neglect was deliberate, and they intended to let Narges die. It was only under major pressure that they transferred her to Pars Hospital, and we hope that she will finally receive proper treatment.”
Mohammadi, a champion of women’s rights, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 while in prison and has been jailed repeatedly throughout her career.
Her current imprisonment began when she was arrested in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad. It is not clear how long her sentence will remain suspended.
Her family said her health had been deteriorating in prison, in part because she was severely beaten during her arrest. She had a heart attack in March and has a blood clot in her lung since before her imprisonment, requiring blood thinners and monitoring to manage it.
Since being taken to the Zanjan hospital’s cardiac care unit, northwest of Tehran, Mohammadi’s blood pressure has been swinging between extremely low and extremely high, and she has been receiving oxygen to breathe and cannot talk, her brother Hamidreza Mohammadi told The Associated Press.
Her family had called for her to be transferred from Zanjan to Tehran so that she could receive better medical care.
The foundation says Mohammadi will remain in intensive care in the hospital’s coronary care unit for treatment by her own medical team.
There was no immediate comment from Iranian authorities.
Lawyer, family call for charges to be dropped
Chirinne Ardakani, Mohammadi’s lawyer based in France, said the prison suspension was secured through the mobilization of global civil groups and human rights diplomacy efforts that pressured the Islamic Republic regime.
“When international attention and pressure grow louder, the Islamic Republic doesn’t like it. It becomes uncomfortable for them. It means people are interfering in what they’re doing,” Ardakani told CBC News.
Ardakani said that the same pressure should continue to be applied on the government to release all political prisoners facing execution or are at risk of execution.
The children of imprisoned Iranian women’s rights activist Narges Mohammadi accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf Sunday. They read from a defiant letter Mohammadi smuggled out of her prison cell, calling for resistance to the regime to continue.
Mohammadi’s lawyers are continuing to call for all charges against her to be dropped.
“The temporary suspension of my mother’s sentence is simply not enough,” said Ali Rahmani, Mohammadi’s son.
“After years of imprisonment, solitary confinement, and systematic medical neglect, her life still hangs by a thread in the CCU. We do not just want her out of a cell for a few days; we demand a permanent end to this judicial persecution.”
Mohammadi was sentenced to a new prison term of 7½ years, the foundation said in February, weeks before the U.S. and Israel launched their war against Iran. The Nobel committee at the time called on Tehran to free her immediately.
She was arrested in December after denouncing the death of a lawyer, Khosrow Alikordi. A prosecutor told reporters that she had made provocative remarks at Alikordi’s memorial ceremony.
The Nobel committee had called on Iranian authorities to immediately transfer Mohammadi to her dedicated medical team in Tehran, saying that “without such treatment, her life remains at risk.”
Her son, Rahmani said she requires “long-term, specialized care without the shadow of a return to the environment that nearly killed her.”
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