Iranian authorities arrested Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi on Friday, her foundation announced, citing her brother.
The Paris-based foundation said Mohammadi was “violently detained” by security and police forces during a memorial service for lawyer Khosrow Alikordi, who was recently found dead in his office. The newspaper cited her brother Mehdi as a “verified report.” She was arrested in Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city.
Mohammadi, one of Iran’s most prominent human rights activists, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023.
In a statement Friday, Norway’s Nobel Committee condemned the “brutal arrest” of Mohammadi and other activists and called for her immediate release.
“The Norwegian Nobel Committee calls on the Iranian authorities to immediately reveal the whereabouts of Mr. Mohammadi, ensure his safety and integrity, and release him unconditionally,” the five-member committee said in a statement issued by its chairman. “The Committee stands in solidarity with Mr. Narges Mohammadi and all those in Iran who work peacefully for human rights, the rule of law and freedom of expression.”
Muhammadi has spent much of the past two decades as an inmate in Tehran’s Evin prison, notorious for detaining regime critics.
In December 2024, Iranian authorities suspended her sentence for three weeks to allow her to recover from surgery she underwent in November to remove part of the bone in her lower right leg. Doctors discovered a lesion there that appeared to be cancerous.
Mohammadi was expected to return to prison soon afterward, but remained on furlough until his arrest on Friday. According to the Narges Foundation, she has been sentenced to 36 years in prison on multiple occasions for crimes including acts against national security and spreading propaganda.
Over the past year, she has continued her activism, becoming increasingly vocal about the human rights situation in Iran and working on various human rights events around the world.
Writing in Time magazine last week, Mohammadi said Iranians cannot experience true peace because the state controls every aspect of their private and personal lives.
“Their peace is destroyed by surveillance, censorship, arbitrary arrest, torture, and constant threats of violence,” she wrote. In the article, she called for support for Iranian civil society, independent media, human rights defenders, and women’s rights defenders.
In December 2024, during a three-week medical release, she remained defiant in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “Whether I am inside Evin or outside Evin, my goal is very clear and we will not stop until we achieve democracy,” she said.
“We want freedom, we want equality. … So no matter which side of the wall you’re on, I’m going to keep fighting.”
The Narges Foundation said several other activists were also arrested during the commemoration, but information on the circumstances was limited. The statement called for the “immediate and unconditional release of all detainees who attended the memorial service and expressed their condolences and solidarity.”
While in detention, Mohammadi detailed the abuse and solitary confinement of women in his custody.
In letters and responses to CNN, she described incidents of sexual assault against her and other female detainees at various facilities dating back to 1999.
He said political prisoners and women detained on criminal charges were being assaulted by security forces, prison authorities and medical personnel.
The Iranian government has denied widespread allegations of sexual assault against detainees, including a thorough investigation by CNN in November 2022, as “false” and “baseless.”
Mohammadi has two teenage twins, Kiana and Ali Rahmani, with her husband Taghi Rahmani. Her children accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on her behalf.
Rahmani, who himself was held as a political prisoner for a total of 14 years, said he met Mohammadi while attending an underground modern history class in 1995. He previously told CNN how his wife has “boundless energy for freedom and human rights.”
Meanwhile, her son Ali told CNN he was “really proud” of his mother. “She wasn’t always with us, but whenever she was, she took good care of us. She was a good mother and still is. … I accept life like this now. The suffering I have to endure doesn’t matter,” he said in 2023.
Fix:
A previous version of this article incorrectly characterized Narges Mohammadi’s occupation. She is a human rights activist.
