Narges Mohammadi, 54, a jailed Iranian women's rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been rushed to a hospital amid a severe deterioration in her health.
The Associated Press reported Sunday, local time, that Mohammadi was transferred to a medical facility after losing consciousness twice at a prison in the Zanjan region in northwestern Iran.
According to the Narges Foundation, which is run by Mohammadi's family, her condition has noticeably worsened in recent weeks. She was previously found unconscious by a fellow inmate on March 24. The prison doctor diagnosed that she had likely suffered a heart attack.
Lawyers who visited her afterward said she appeared extremely weakened. They testified that she had lost weight and was unable to walk on her own, requiring assistance from a nurse.
In response, her family had demanded for several weeks that she be transferred to an outside hospital to receive specialized treatment, but prison authorities reportedly refused. Her legal representative, Shirin Ardakani, said even cardiac specialist care was not permitted, and strict controls continued during lawyer visits, with prison guards attending the meetings.
The foundation criticized the latest measure as "action taken after about 140 days of medical neglect since her arrest on December 12 last year." It explained that a dedicated medical team in Tehran had continuously raised the need for treatment, but the transfer was only decided after her condition became unmanageable on site.
The foundation also expressed concern, saying, "The current measure may be too late to prevent a life-threatening situation."
Mohammadi is one of Iran's leading women's rights activists and anti-government figures. She has campaigned against the country's mandatory dress code for women and the death penalty, and has been imprisoned and released multiple times over 25 years since 2001.
She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 while in prison, in recognition of her resistance to the oppression of Iranian women and her leadership in the struggle for human rights and freedom. After her sentence was suspended on health grounds in late 2024 and she was released, she continued her activism, staging protests in front of the prison where she had been held. However, she was arrested again last December after attending a memorial event for a human rights lawyer.
