The 54-year-old activist has spent most of the last 20 years of her life behind bars. She was convicted five times by the courts of the Islamic Republic, mainly for her role in protests against the strict dress code for women in Iran, in addition to other punishments, such as flogging and travel bans.
Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi, Nobel Peace Prize winner 2023 detained in Iran since December, is “between life and death”, after being hospitalized in an emergency last weekend, according to her lawyer.
“We have never feared so much for Narges’ life; she could leave us at any moment,” said Chirinne Ardakani at a press conference organized by the commission supporting the Iranian journalist and human rights activist, this Tuesday in Paris.
The 54-year-old activist, admitted to the Coronary Care Unit of a hospital in the city of Zanjan since Friday, continues to be in an “unstable situation”, receiving additional oxygen supply, with high blood pressure and suffering from nausea, her foundation said on social media.
Mohammadi began a hunger strike in February this year to protest the conditions in which she is imprisoned, with her husband and the Narges Foundation, based in Paris, denouncing that prison authorities regularly subject her to beatings and other types of torture.
The 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner was arrested on December 12, 2025, while attending the funeral of lawyer Khosrow Alikordi, who had died weeks earlier in “strange circumstances”.
The activist spent most of the last 20 years of her life behind bars, suffered multiple heart attacks and underwent emergency surgery in 2022.
She was convicted five times by the courts of the Islamic Republic, until she accumulated a total sentence of 31 years in prison, mainly for her role in protests against the strict dress code for women in Iran, in addition to other punishments, such as flogging and a travel ban.
On Monday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres asked authorities in Tehran to guarantee her “at least” the urgent medical care she needs, after she was hospitalized with a heart problem that arose during the February hunger strike.
These statements by Guterres came after the human rights defender’s family demanded last Friday that Mohammadi be transferred to a hospital in the Iranian capital, to undergo an angiography and thus be able to obtain a complete diagnosis, given her background.
