Iranian prison authorities are blocking the transfer to hospital of 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi because of her refusal to cover her head, her family has denounced. The 51-year-old activist requires urgent care for heart and lung problems.
On Sunday, “the prison director announced that, in accordance with orders from higher authorities, it was forbidden to send him to the heart hospital without a headscarf, and his transfer was canceled for the second time,” regretted his family in a text posted on Instagram Wednesday evening.
On Monday, a medical team visited the women’s wing of Evin Prison to examine Narges Mohammadi and perform an echocardiogram after the prison refused to transfer her to the infirmary without a headscarf. “She is willing to risk her life by not wearing the ‘forced hijab’, even for medical treatment,” her family said.
In Iran, the protest continues
Arrested 13 times, sentenced five times to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes, and incarcerated again since 2021, Narges Mohammadi is one of the main faces of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising in Iran. This 51-year-old activist and journalist received the Nobel Peace Prize on October 6. The committee, on this occasion, praised “its fight against the oppression of women in Iran and its fight for the promotion of human rights and freedom for all”.
In a message expressing gratitude for the prize, read by her daughter and published on the official Nobel website on Tuesday, Narges Mohammadi described the compulsory hijab as “the main source of control and repression in society, aimed at maintaining and perpetuating an authoritarian religious government.
The anti-veil protest movement in Iran, which has seen women drop their headscarves, cut their hair and demonstrate in the streets, was sparked by the death last year of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, Mahsa Amini, after his arrest in Tehran for non-compliance with the strict Islamic dress code. The protest was severely repressed.