Narges Mohammadi has been sentenced to one year in prison in Iran for “propaganda against the state”. The Nobel Peace Prize winner had refused to attend the hearing.
The Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi had called for a boycott of the staged parliamentary elections in Iran, maintained correspondence with Western politicians and expressed solidarity with a journalist who was temporarily arrested – an Iranian court has now sentenced her to one year in prison “for propaganda against the state”. Her lawyer Mostafa Nili announced the reasons for the verdict on the X platform.
In March, the convicted Mohammadi released an audio message in which she spoke of a “large-scale war against women” in Iran. She also expressed her solidarity with journalist Dina Ghalibaf, who was arrested after accusing security forces of violence and sexual assault during a previous arrest online. The Iranian judicial authorities announced in April that Ghalibaf would now be charged with perjury.
In prison in Tehran since 2021
Mohammadi has been incarcerated in Tehran’s Evin Prison since November 2021 and has not seen her husband and children for several years. In 2023, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in absentia. Even from prison, she continues to be a voice for women’s and human rights in Iran and a critic of the Islamist system.
She had refused to attend a hearing in the trial for “propaganda against the state” in early June. Her family quoted the 52-year-old as demanding that the public be allowed to attend the trial so that they could witness the Islamic regime’s sexual assaults against women.