Iranian authorities on Wednesday released Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nargess Mohammadi from prison for three weeks on medical grounds, a move described by supporters as “too late” and with the Nobel Committee urging permanent release.
Speaking to reporters in Paris, Mohammadi’s 18-year-old son, Ali Rahmani, said he had been able to speak to his mother on the phone for the first time in two years.
His lawyer Mustafa Nili had previously announced on X that his prison sentence had been “suspended” for three weeks and that he had been released.
His supporters said: “A 21-day suspension of Narges Mohammadi’s sentence is inadequate.”
“We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Nargess Mohammadi or at least an extension of her leave by three months,” they said in a statement. He described the measure as “too little, too late”.
In a sign of her defiance, her husband Taghi Rahmani told reporters in Paris that Mohammadi chanted “Woman’s Life Freedom” after her release, the slogan of the 2022–2023 protest movement that sparked outrage among Islamic authorities. Was.
“She came out raising slogans of Woman Life Freedom,” he said.
“She came out in a good mental state, a combative state, despite her extremely delicate state of health.”
Mohammadi’s son Rahmani told reporters that their phone exchange was brief but intense.
“She was able to tell me that she loved me,” he said.
“The first thing she told me was that she had left Evin prison without the mandatory veil,” he said.
“What impressed me most was that she would continue to fight against the Islamic Republic of Iran to have gender apartheid recognized as a universal crime throughout the world, and she would also fight against the death penalty. Will continue.”
Mohammadi has been jailed since November 2021 due to several previous convictions related to her advocacy against mandatory hijab for women in Iran and the death penalty.
She has not seen her husband and twin children for several years and has spent much of the last decade in and out of jail.
‘Refusal of medical care’
Supporters said his release does not even amount to a medical furlough and is merely a suspension, meaning Mohammadi will have to serve an “additional 21 days” upon returning to Tehran’s Evin prison.
“We call on the Iranian authorities to permanently end his imprisonment and ensure that he will receive adequate medical treatment for his illnesses,” Jorgen Watne Friednes, head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told reporters.
Mohammadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for campaigning for human rights in Iran, had bone surgery last month for a non-malignant growth, which included a bone graft.
His supporters and family said, “The denial of proper medical care and adequate recovery time after surgery led to the rapid development of bedsores and intensified pain in his back and legs.”
“After more than a decade of imprisonment, Narges needs specialized medical care in a safe, sanitary environment – a basic human right,” he said.
Lawyer Neely said the prosecutor granted the release based on medical advice due to “his physical condition following the removal of a tumor and bone graft three weeks earlier”.
“The tumor was benign but she needed to be checked every three months,” he said.
Behind bars and deprived of the right to speak to his family in France, Mohammadi refused to abandon the election campaign, protesting in the courtyard of Evin prison and going on a hunger strike.
In a letter from prison in September, she condemned the “devastating oppression” of women in Iran.
Mohammadi was a strong supporter of the 2022–2023 protests calling for the ouster of Islamist authorities under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In June, she was sentenced to an additional year for “propaganda against the state”.
He refused to appear in court for the trial after his request for the trial to be held in public was rejected.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
