Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi sentenced to 7.5 years in prison, support group says

TEHRAN: Iranian activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi has been sentenced to a new prison term of seven and a half years, according to a group supporting her.

The Narges Foundation said on Sunday that Mohammadi, 53, informed her lawyer Mostafa Nili during a phone call from prison that she received the sentence on Saturday. The foundation added that she had ended a week-long hunger strike on Sunday.

Iran’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Tehran has renewed its crackdown on dissent during nearly three weeks of anti-government protests that began in late December.

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Mohammadi was arrested on December 12 after denouncing the suspicious death of lawyer Khosrow Alikordi. Prosecutor Hasan Hematifar said she made provocative remarks at Alikordi’s memorial ceremony in Mashhad and encouraged those present to chant slogans and disturb the peace. She is currently being held at a detention centre in Mashhad.

The foundation said Mohammadi had been kept in isolation with communication cut off, and was only recently able to briefly describe her situation to her lawyer.

Her sentence reportedly includes six years for assembly and collusion against national security and one and a half years for propaganda against the government. She was also ordered to spend two years in internal exile in the city of Khusf and given a two-year travel ban.

Mohammadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 while imprisoned for her long-running campaign for women’s rights and the abolition of the death penalty in Iran.