Supporters of Iran’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nargis Mohammadi said on Sunday her supporters’ “health is deteriorating” after ending a nearly week-long hunger strike, as authorities resentenced the activist to jail.
Mohammadi, who won the 2023 Peace Prize, has spent the past two months in prison after speaking against the government at his funeral in December.
She was sentenced on Saturday to six years in prison for endangering national security and a year and a half for “propaganda” against Iran’s Islamic system, her foundation said in a statement.
Mohammadi offered no defense or made any statement in a show of defiance after being brought before a judge and swiftly sentenced, the statement said.
Her husband Taghi Rahmani, who is based in Paris, said in a statement: “Narges has offered no defence, and she firmly believes that this judicial body has no legitimacy. She considers these proceedings to be nothing more than a guessing game with a predetermined outcome.”
Other punishments include two years in exile in the city of Khosif in the eastern province of South Khorasan, her Iranian lawyer Mustafa Nili told AFP in Tehran, confirming details of the sentence.
Mohammadi revealed the verdict in a phone call with Neely, the second time she has spoken to the outside world since her arrest in the eastern city of Mashhad in December.
Mohammadi began a hunger strike on February 2 to protest the conditions of her imprisonment and her inability to call her lawyer and family.
“Nargis Mohammadi today ended the sixth day of her hunger strike and reports indicate that her medical condition is very worrying,” the foundation said.
Mohammadi told Neely that she had only been transferred to the hospital three days ago “due to her deteriorating health condition,” the report added.
“However, before completing treatment, she was returned to the Ministry of Intelligence Security Detention Center in Mashhad,” the foundation said.
“Her continued detention is life-threatening and in breach of human rights law.”
-“Cares a lot about my mom”-
Mohammadi was arrested later in December before protests erupted across the country. The movement peaked in January when authorities launched a crackdown that activists said has killed thousands.
Under Iranian law, the prison sentences are to run concurrently, but her foundation said that even taking that into account, she faced “an effective prison sentence of more than 17 years, in addition to 154 lashes that extend from the previous sentence”.
Mohammadi, 53, has been tried and imprisoned several times over the past quarter-century for speaking out against Iran’s use of the death penalty and mandatory dress code for women.
Mohammadi has spent much of the past decade in prison and has not seen her twin children, who live in Paris, since 2015.
“I am very worried about my mom. She and all political prisoners in Iran must be released immediately,” her daughter Kiana said.
Mohammadi strongly supported the 2022-2023 protests sparked by the death of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in custody.
She also frequently predicted the collapse of the religious system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), Iranian authorities have arrested more than 50,000 people as part of a crackdown on protests.
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