PARIS (AP) — The health of Iran’s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi is worsening, in part because of a beating she endured during her arrest two months ago, her husband told The Associated Press on Friday.
Speaking at his home in Paris, Taghi Rahmani said he has not been able to speak with his wife since she was arrested on Dec. 12 during a visit to the eastern Iranian city of Mashhad. She was allowed a single brief phone call to her brother and has only spoken to her lawyer once — after she was handed a new prison sentence earlier this week, he said.
Mohammadi was arrested several weeks before nationwide protests began to spread around Iran, culminating in marches by hundreds of thousands on Jan. 8 to Jan. 9, until they were crushed by a heavy government crackdown. Rights groups have so far counted more than 7,000 dead and say the true number is likely far higher; the government has put the toll at more than 3,100 dead.
The 53-year-old Mohammadi started a hunger strike in prison on Feb. 2, and several days later a court sentenced her to more than seven additional years in prison, her lawyer in Iran posted on X over the weekend. Authorities did not immediately acknowledge the sentence. She was already serving a sentence of 13 years and nine months on charges of collusion against state security and propaganda against Iran’s government, but had been released on furlough since late 2024 over medical concerns.
It was not clear if Mohammadi has ended her hunger strike since her sentencing, her husband said.
Rahmani, who has lived in exile since 2012, said he last spoke to his wife, who lives in Tehran, the night before she left for Mashhad. She was attending a memorial there for a human rights lawyer who had died the previous week under unclear circumstances. At the memorial, plainclothes members of the security forces began to assault Mohammadi before she had finished her speech, according to her husband.
He said multiple men hit and kicked her in her side, head and neck.
Details of her deteriorating condition have come from released detainees who had been held alongside Mohammadi in Mashhad, Rahmani said.
“Collectively this information shows her physical condition is very severe because of the hits she got, her bruised body,” he said, adding that her heart condition had worsened.
Mohammadi suffered multiple heart attacks while imprisoned before undergoing emergency surgery in 2022, her supporters say. Her lawyer in late 2024 revealed doctors found a bone lesion they feared could be cancerous, which later was removed.
“Our main concern about Narges is her illnesses,” Rahmani said. He said three of her four coronary arteries are constricted and she has pulmonary problems. “These illnesses she has gotten from being in prison. When she is in prison it isn’t possible to take care of her health,” he said.
The Nobel committee condemned the “ongoing life-threatening mistreatment” of Mohammadi, in a statement issued Wednesday.
Sentenced without a lawyer
Mohammadi, a human rights activist, has been imprisoned multiple times over her vocal criticisms of Iran’s theocratic rule. She was awarded the Nobel in 2023 while in prison. Even during her medical furlough, she kept up her activism with public protests and international media appearances, including demonstrating in front of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, where she had been held.
Mohammadi’s new sentence was handed down Saturday by a Revolutionary Court in Mashhad, her lawyer, Mostafa Nili, said on X. Such courts typically issue verdicts with little or no opportunity for defendants to contest their charges.
Nili was not allowed to attend the court sentencing, but Mohammadi was able to contact him afterward — her first contact with her lawyer since her arrest, Rahmani said.
“In the court, she didn’t defend herself because she has the belief that the Islamic Republic’s court has made its ruling already, from before, and 100% this verdict will be confirmed,” he said.
“We want Narges’ release,” he said. “A human rights activist – a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize – whom they have arrested has no permission for access to a lawyer.”
“A flagrant crime”
A writer, Rahmani was a political prisoner in Iran multiple times himself, for a total of more than 14 years. Abuses during his imprisonment caused him to lose much of his hearing.
Rahmani said conditions for political prisoners in Iran have continued to deteriorate amid the suppression of the latest protests. The crackdown is the deadliest since the Islamic Republic was created in 1979. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency has put the number of arrests at more than 50,000. The AP has been unable to verify that figure.
“In these 47 years, the Islamic Republic hadn’t killed people to this extent. This is a flagrant crime. People very clearly want to put the Islamic Republic behind them,” Rahmani said. “They want a republic, they want democracy.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has moved an aircraft carrier and other military assets to the Persian Gulf and suggested the U.S. could attack Iran over the killing of peaceful demonstrators or if Tehran launches mass executions over the protests. A second American aircraft carrier is on its way to the Mideast. Trump has also opened negotiations with Iran.
Rahmani said he opposed any attack by an outside country on Iran and said he doesn’t believe Trump wants to help protesters.
“Donald Trump won’t bring democracy for us. Donald Trump is after a series of issues he wants to get to — like the nuclear issue, like the missile issue, and then Israel,” he said. Israel and the U.S. both struck Iran heavily during last year’s 12-day war.
“For this reason, in my opinion, they are not credible as far as democracy for Iran goes,” he said.
He said he believed any political transition to democracy must come from within the country.
“We want Iran to be a free country, with a democracy, and that we can ourselves return to our own country. Every person loves the land where he or she was born, and tries to help it blossom,” he said.
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Radjy reported from Cairo.