Iran’s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Narges Mohammadi
| Photo Credit: VIA REUTERS

Iran’s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Narges Mohammadi, has been sentenced to another year in prison over her activism, her lawyer said Wednesday.

Mostafa Nili, Mohammadi’s lawyer, said that his client was convicted on a charge of making propaganda against the system. Nili said the sentence came after Ms. Mohammadi urged voters to boycott Iran’s recent parliamentary election, sent letters to lawmakers in Europe and made comments regarding torture and sexual assault suffered by another Iranian journalist and political activist.

Ms. Mohammadi is being held at Iran’s notorious Evin Prison, which houses political prisoners and those with Western ties. She already had been serving a 30-month sentence, to which 15 more months were added in January. Iran’s government has not acknowledged her additional sentencing.

The latest verdict reflects the Iranian theocracy’s anger that she was awarded the Nobel prize last October for years of activism despite a decadeslong government campaign targeting her.

Ms. Mohammadi is the 19th woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize and the second Iranian woman after human rights activist Shirin Ebadi in 2003. Mohammadi, 52, has kept up her activism despite numerous arrests by Iranian authorities and years behind bars.

In November, Ms. Mohammadi went on a hunger strike over being blocked along with other inmates from getting medical care and to protest the country’s mandatory headscarves for women.

Ms. Mohammadi was a leading light for nationwide, women-led protests sparked by the death last year of a 22-year-old woman in police custody that have grown into one of the most intense challenges to Iran’s theocratic government. That woman, Mahsa Amini, had been detained for allegedly not wearing her headscarf to the liking of authorities.

For observant Muslim women, the head covering is a sign of piety before God and modesty in front of men outside their families. In Iran, the hijab — and the all-encompassing black chador worn by some — has long been a political symbol as well, particularly after becoming mandatory in the years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

While women in Iran hold jobs, academic positions and even government appointments, their lives are tightly controlled, in part by laws like the mandatory hijab. Iran and neighboring Taliban-ruled Afghanistan are the only countries to mandate the headscarves. Since Amini’s death, however, more women are choosing not to wear hijab despite an increasing campaign by authorities targeting them and businesses serving them.

Her cell in the women’s ward of Tehran’s Evin prison has a window that opens to a view of the Alborz mountains. The mountain range that stretches from the border of Azerbaijan and merges into the heights of Khorasan has acted as a natural barrier and protector of Tehran for centuries. From the window, she could see the wild flowers on the hills and the snow-clad peaks of the mountains. “I sit in front of the window every day, stare at the greenery and dream of a free Iran,” Narges Mohammadi said in an interview in June this year. Evin, built by the Shah and opened in 1972, is one of the most notorious prisons in Iran which is estimated to be holding one-quarter of the country’s political prisoners. With its torture and solitary confinement cells, Evin could break even the toughest and most resolute minds. In the words of Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian-American scholar who himself was a prisoner, “Evin is Iran’s Bastille”.

Lengthy prison terms took a toll on Ms. Mohammadi’s mental and physical health, but her resolve to continue to fight for what she believes in stayed intact. When Iran erupted into street protests last year after the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, allegedly at the hands of the country’s morality police who arrested her for violating the mandatory hijab rules, Ms. Mohammadi’s life and struggles came into focus again. She organised protests inside the walls of the prison. She continued to speak through her Instagram page and written interviews in defence of women’s rights. In September this year, she said the cycles of protests in Iran showed that change was “irreversible”. On October 6, the Norwegian Nobel Committee recognised her relentless struggle by awarding her the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize. Ms. Mohammadi “has dedicated her life to fighting against the oppression of women in Iran and promoting human rights and freedom for all”, said the Committee.

Revolutionary fervour

Born in 1972 in Zanjan, some 270 km northwest of Tehran, Narges Mohammadi grew up in the Shah’s Iran that was gripped by revolutionary fervour. The 1979 revolution, which overthrew the Shah’s monarchy and turned Iran into an Islamic Republic, was a watershed moment in the country’s history. The Shah’s regime was highly oppressive and resentful, run by his notorious security police SAVAK and oligarchs, but had tolerated limited social liberties, especially for women. While it’s popularly called the “Islamic revolution”, the anti-Shah popular movement was not just Islamic. Iranians from different political sections, including nationalists, liberals, leftists and trade unionists, had actively joined the movement, seeking freedom from the Shah’s royal dictatorship. When the Shah fled the country in January 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini was in Paris. He landed in Tehran’s Mehrabad airport, which was controlled by the revolutionaries, on February 1, 1979. Khomeini ushered in a new system that would have an elected President and Parliament, while the clerics would remain firmly in control. He promised an Islamic revolutionary government based on Sharia, a model which he called Vilayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Faqih, or the Islamic Jurist).

While the revolutionary regime, which promised economic justice and a new spiritual path forward amassed support in the countryside, the liberal and left-leaning sections of Iranian society were agitated by the turn their country was taking. The new regime lost no time in cracking down on dissent. Among those arrested were an activist uncle and two cousins of Ms. Mohammadi. So she did not need to be introduced into activism.

Also read: 2023 Nobel Peace Prize: Narges Mohammadi | The Iranian activist who continues to fight from behind the bars

After finishing high school in Zanjan, she joined the Imam Khomeini University in Qazvin for a major in applied physics. There, Ms. Mohammadi co-founded an organisation called Tashakkol Daaneshjooei Roshangaraan (Illuminating Students Group) and started taking up women’s issues and a campaign against the death penalty. It was in the university she met Tagh Rahmani, another activist, and journalist who she would marry in 1999.

After college, she started writing for a women’s magazine, Payaam-e Haajar. It was published by Azam Alaei Taleghani, daughter of Ayatollah Seyyed Mahmoud Alaei Taleghani, a progressive cleric and a supporter of Mohammad Mosaddegh, the leftwing Iranian Prime Minister ousted by a CIA-engineered coup in 1953. The magazine was shut down in 2000.

As a journalist, Ms. Mohammadi wrote about women’s issues and reformist causes. After her husband, Mr. Rehmani, was arrested in 2001 for a political gathering, she became more involved in rights campaigns and civil society movements. A year later, she joined the Centre for the Defenders of Human Rights that was co-founded by Shirin Ebadi, the renowned human rights campaigner who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize. Ms. Mohammadi would soon become the head of the Centre’s Committee on Women’s Rights and represent Ms. Ebadi in foreign conferences. She was also one of the founding members of the National Council for Peace, which was established in 2007, amid fears of a U.S. invasion of Iran, and advocated for peace and campaigned against war.

Her quick rise as a human rights activist earned her the wrath of the regime, which has always looked at liberal campaigners with suspicion. In 2009, the authorities confiscated her passport, potentially banning her from travelling abroad. (Her husband left the country in 2011 and has been living in exile in France ever since. Their twins joined him in 2015.) In 2010, she was arrested for her work for the Centre for the Defenders of Human Rights. According to Mr. Rahmani, Ms. Mohammadi has since then been arrested 13 times, sentenced to a total of 31 years and 154 lashes. In 2011, she was convicted “of acting against national security” and spreading propaganda against the state.

According to PEN America, Ms. Mohammadi “suffers from a neurological disorder that can result in seizures, temporary partial paralysis, and pulmonary embolism — a blood clot in her lung”. In 2014, she was released due to ill health, but outside jail, she drew the world’s attention to the conditions of Evin prison — her 2022 book White Torture, based on interviews with 12 female inmates, gives extensive details about the inhuman conditions of the prison. She herself was kept in solitary confinement and tortured, according to her account. In 2015, she was arrested again and sentenced to another 16 years. She was released a few times due to ill health ever since, but was immediately rearrested.

International recognition

But jail did not break her. Her commitment and resolution earned her several international awards. She is the recipient of both the Alexander Langer Award (2009), the Per Anger Prize (2011), and the 2022 Reporters without Borders Prize for Courage for her human rights work. She also won the 2013 PEN/Oxfam Novib Free Expression Award and the Swedish Olof Palme prize for human rights (2023). And now, the Nobel Prize also reached her.

The Iranian regime, unsurprisingly, is not happy with the Nobel Committee’s decision. A report in the official Press TV noted that she was in jail for “colluding to act against national security, engaging in propaganda campaigns against the government as well as forming and directing an illegal group”. The Foreign Ministry described Ms. Mohammadi as someone who “committed criminal actions”. Kazem Gharibabadi, secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, called the Nobel prize a “political reward”, which has “rather turned into a [means of] financial support for the illegal activities of some of its winners”.

The Nobel Peace Prize has hardly been free of controversies. The Committee has been accused, many a time, of awarding the Prize to critics of regimes that are seen as rivals by the West. But irrespective of the politics of the Nobel Prize, Narges Mohammadi is here to stay as a fearless voice of freedoms in the theocratic Islamic Republic of Iran.

Dharamshala:

The Dalai Lama on Saturday congratulated jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi on winning the Nobel Peace Prize and said the award was also in recognition of the vital role women play in people’s lives. Mohammadi, 51, was awarded the prize on Friday in recognition of her tireless campaigning for women’s rights and democracy and against the death penalty.

In a letter to her on Saturday, the Tibetan spiritual leader said, “Today, the values of democracy, transparency, respect for human rights, and equality are increasingly recognised on every side as universal values, which can only benefit us all.”

“I have met and held discussions with previous Nobel laureates, including your sometime colleague, Mrs. Shirin Ebadi. I admire their efforts to overcome discrimination against women and improve society in a peaceful way. I believe that the award of this Nobel Peace Prize is also in recognition of the vital role women play in the lives of us all from the very day we are born,” the Dalai Lama wrote.

He said there is a growing desire for change in the world, a change that will see conflicts resolved through dialogue and non-violence.

“The foundation of such change will be kindness, compassion and human responsibility. I believe that this goal can be achieved through education based on a deeper appreciation of the oneness of humanity. Because we are so interconnected, this is a question of the well-being of us all,” he wrote.

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Tehran:

Media in Iran on Friday lambasted jailed rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi who won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, saying she had “collaborated with terrorist groups” and committed “anti-Iranian activities”.

The 51-year-old journalist and activist has spent much of the past two decades on multiple charges, including spreading anti-state propaganda and committing acts against national security.

Most recently, she has been incarcerated since November 2021.

Foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani called the move to award Mohammadi the Peace Prize “biased and political”.

Iranian media also lashed out at both her and the award.

The official IRNA news agency criticised the Nobel Committee for awarding “a woman who collaborated with terrorist groups” and who is “unknown in her own country, particularly among Iranian women”.

It said awarding Mohammadi the Peace Prize was an “interventionist act” meant to “politicise the concept of human rights”.

Tasnim news agency called her a “security convict” who committed “subversive” activities, and said the Nobel Peace Prize had a history of being handed to “criminals”.

Mehr published a column by ultraconservative analyst Mohammad Imani lambasting the award.

Western governments “pay one person the equivalent of a million euros and set a trap for thousands of mercenaries ready to betray their country,” he said.

Mohammadi had expressed support for the protest movement which rocked Iran following the September 16, 2022, death in police custody of Mahsa Amini.

Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, had been arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

Her death triggered months-long demonstrations which the authorities in Iran labelled as “riots” fomented by foreign governments.

Reformist media outlets published the news about Mohammadi being awarded the prize, but without passing comment.

Several Iranian actresses detained in 2022 for supporting the protest movement congratulated Mohammadi.

Katayoun Riahi, who was arrested last November and released after more than a week, on Instagram welcomed the Nobel Prize awarded to “our honour who is in prison”.

Also on Instagram, prominent actress Taraneh Alidoosti, who was arrested in January before her release three weeks later, posted: “Freedom will come with you, dear Narges, because a woman like you has no place in prison.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Iranian human rights activist and the vice president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center Narges Mohammadi poses in this undated handout picture.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Rights campaigner and 2023 Nobel Peace laureateNarges Mohammadi said in a September interview with AFP that she retained hope for change in Iran, despite having no prospect of release from prison and enduring the pain of separation from her family.

In the interview, where Mohammadi gave written answers to AFP from Evin prison in Tehran, she insisted the protest movement that erupted one year ago in Iran against the Islamic republic is still alive.

First arrested 22 years ago, Mohammadi, 51, has spent much of the past two decades in and out of jail over her unstinting campaigning for human rights in Iran. She has most recently been incarcerated since November 2021 and has not seen her children for eight years.

While she could only witness from behind bars the protests that broke out following the death on September 16, 2022 of Mahsa Amini — who had been arrested for violating Iran’s strict dress rules for women — she said the movement made clear the levels of dissatisfaction in society.

“The government was not able to break the protests of the people of Iran and I believe that society has achieved things that have weakened the foundations of religious-authoritarian rule,” she told AFP.

Noting that Iran had even before September 2022 seen repeated protest outbreaks, she added: “We have seen cycles of protests in recent years and this shows the irreversible nature of the situation and the scope for the expansion of the protests.”

She said that after “44 years of oppression, discrimination and continuous repression of the government against women in public and personal life” the protests had “accelerated the process of realising democracy, freedom and equality in Iran”.

Mohammadi said the protests opposing the Islamic republic had involved people “beyond urban areas and educated classes” at a time when religious authority was “losing its place” in society.

“The weakening of the religious element has created a vacuum that the government has not been able to fill with other economic and social factors, as the government is essentially ineffective and corrupt.”

But she was bitterly critical of what she described as the “appeasement” by the West of Iran’s leaders, saying foreign governments “have not recognised the progressive forces and leaders in Iran and pursued policies aimed at perpetuating the religious-authoritarian system in Iran.”

Mohammadi said she was currently serving a combined sentence of 10 years and nine months in prison, had also been sentenced to 154 lashes and had five cases against her linked to her activities in jail alone.

“I have almost no prospect of freedom,” she said.

But she said she “kept the hope of seeing the light of freedom and hearing its voice” and in prison organised discussions in the women’s wing of Evin as well as singing and even dancing.

“Prison has always been at the core of opposition, resistance and struggle in my country and for me it also embodies the essence of life in all its beauty.”

“The Evin women’s wing is one of the most active, resistant and joyful quarters of political prisoners in Iran. During my years in prison, on three occasions, I shared detention with at least 600 women, and I am proud of each of them.”

But for Mohammadi, the cost of her activism has also been immense, meaning she has missed much of the childhood of her twin children Kiana and Ali who now live, along with her husband Taghi Rahmani, in France.

As well as not seeing them for eight years, restrictions placed by the prison on her telephone calls mean she has not even heard their voices for more than a year and a half.

“My most incurable and indescribable suffering is the longing to be with my children from whose lives I departed when they were eight.”

“The price of the struggle is not only torture and prison, it is a heart that breaks with every regret and a pain that strikes to the marrow of your bones.”

But she added: “I believe that as long as democracy, equality and freedom have not been achieved, we must continue to fight and sacrifice.”

Undated, unlocated photo of Iranian rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi.
| Photo Credit: Narges Mohammadi Foundation via AFP

In 1998, Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi was jailed by the country’s theocratic authorities for the first time while protesting the rampant imprisonment of voices critical of the administration. In 2023, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, while still in prison.

Known for campaigning for women’s rights and the abolition of the death penalty, Ms. Mohammadi was awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize by the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday. “Ms. Mohammadi is a woman, a human rights advocate, and a freedom fighter. This year’s Peace prize also recognises the hundreds of thousands of people who, in the preceding year, have demonstrated against the theocratic regime’s policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women,” the committee said in a statement.

The prize comes after a tumultuous year of widespread protests in Iran triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who died in the custody of the country’s morality police. Ms. Amini had been detained for allegedly wearing her hijab too loosely in violation of laws that require women in public to wear the Islamic headscarf. Her death set off protests across multiple Iranian cities with young women marching in the streets and publicly exposing and cutting off their hair, followed by a brutal government crackdown.

Ms. Mohammadi is a globally prominent figure, recognised for her efforts in advocating for women’s rights, prisoners’ rights, and freedom of expression in what can arguably be called one of the world’s most challenging environments for human rights.

A qualified engineer with a degree in physics, Ms. Mohammadi established her roots in the field of activism early on in life. She began advocating for women’s and students’ rights by writing articles while in college, and was arrested twice in university meetings. She has worked as a journalist with platforms like Payaam-e-Hajar, a periodical dedicated to women’s issues (which was shut down in 2000). A passionate mountain climber, Ms. Mohammadi was barred from participating in official expeditions because of her political views.

The Nobel laureate’s long and harrowing tryst with the Iranian prison system is emblematic of how the country’s judiciary stifles dissent. According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, the Iranian regime has “arrested her 13 times, convicted her five times, and sentenced her to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes”. On multiple occasions, she has been held at Evin Prison, a facility in Tehran notorious for prisoner abuse.

In 2003, Ms. Mohammadi joined the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC) and worked closely with the founder Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian activist who was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 2003 for promoting democracy and rights of women, children, and refugees in the country. Ms. Ebadi lives in exile in the U.K.

Ms. Mohammadi was arrested in 2010 in connection with her work for DHRC and was released on bail before being arrested again the next year on charges of national security violations. She was sentenced to serve 11 years in prison. Her arrest was protested by international leaders including U.S. Senator Mark Kirby, U.K. politician Dennis MacShane, and Australian M.P. Michael Danby.

She was released shortly after but was summoned by authorities after her speech at the grave of Sattar Beheshti, an Iranian blogger who died under suspicious circumstances at Evin Prison, went viral on social media in 2014.

She was arrested again in 2015 on new charges and sentenced to 16 years in prison. She was released in October 2020 following multiple rounds of hunger strikes and bouts of deteriorating health in prison. She was also transferred from Evin Prison to a prison in Zanjan, the city where she was born.

Ms. Mohammadi was arbitrarily arrested in November 2021 in Karaj while attending a memorial for Ebrahim Ketabdar, killed by Iranian forces during nationwide protests in November 2019. In December 2022, BBC published details of abuse from Evin Prison corroborated by Ms. Mohammadi, in the wake of nationwide protests following the death of Ms. Amini.

Over the years, Ms. Mohammadi was awarded several prizes like the Alexander Lang Award (2009), the Pen Anger Award (2011), the Andrei Sakharov Award (2018), and the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize (2023) for her fight against oppression of human rights in Iran.

She is married to Taghi Rahmani, a pro-reform Iranian activist who lives in exile in France with their two children.

Paris, France:

Iranian rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi, who has spent much of the past two decades in jail, is the fifth laureate to win the Nobel Peace Prize whilst behind bars.

Honoured on Friday for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran, the 51-year-old journalist and activist has campaigned against the mandatory hijab for women and the death penalty.

She is the vice-president of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre founded by Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, herself a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 2003.

The other four Peace Prize laureates who were imprisoned when they won are as follows:

1935: Carl Von Ossietzky, Germany

Journalist and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp when he won the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize and was unable to make the trip to Oslo to collect the award.

Von Ossietzky, who had been arrested three years earlier in a raid on opponents of Adolf Hitler following the Reichstag fire, was the first regime critic anywhere in the world to receive the prestigious award.

Furious over the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision, Adolf Hitler banned all German citizens from accepting a Nobel in any category.

While Ossietzky was unable to pick up his diploma and gold Nobel medal, a German lawyer tricked his family into allowing him to pocket the prize money. Ossietzky died in captivity in 1938.

1991: Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar

Myanmar’s deposed leader and democracy champion won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, at a time when she was under house arrest as part of a crackdown by the country’s military leadership on the pro-democracy opposition.

Honoured “for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights”, Suu Kyi feared she would not be allowed to return to Myanmar if she travelled to Oslo.

She was instead represented at the 1991 prize ceremony by her two sons and her husband, who accepted the award on her behalf. Symbolically, an empty chair was placed on the stage to mark her absence.

She gave her traditional Nobel lecture in 2012, after being freed in 2010 and going on to lead her country.

Suu Kyi was again detained after the generals seized power in February 2021. In 2022 she was jailed for a total of 33 years, a term later partially reduced by junta chief Min Aung Hlaing.

2010: Liu Xiaobo, China

The jailed Chinese dissident won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.

He was serving an 11-year jail sentence for subversion.

Honoured “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China”, Liu’s chair was symbolically left empty and no award was handed out.

His wife, Liu Xia, was placed under house arrest after the prize was announced and his three brothers were blocked from leaving China.

He died in July 2017 of liver cancer in a Chinese hospital at the age of 61, after being transferred there from prison, becoming the second Nobel laureate to die in captivity.

2022: Ales Bialiatski, Belarus

Belarusian rights campaigner Ales Bialiatski, who was jailed in July 2021, in 2022 shared the award with Russia’s Memorial group and Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties for their work to document war crimes and rights abuse.

The head of Belarus’s most prominent rights group, Viasna has been at the forefront of attempts to chart the abuses of the regime of Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko

He was arrested — after months of mass demonstrations over Lukashenko’s rule — on charges of tax evasion, a move seen by fellow dissidents as a thinly veiled attempt to silence him.

He was represented by his wife, Natalia Pinchuk.

He was sentenced in March to 10 years in jail. Other members of Viasna were also handed jail terms.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Narges Mohammadi, an Iranian human rights activist, currently serving a 12-year prison sentence, has been honoured with the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize. Mohammadi was bestowed with the honour “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.” The prestigious award will be presented in Oslo on December 10, the death anniversary of its founder, Alfred Nobel.

Hailing Mohammadi as a “freedom fighter,” the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, started her speech by invoking the Farsi words for “woman, life, freedom” – a slogan frequently heard during protests against the Iranian government.

Five facts about Narges Mohammadi:

• Ms Mohammadi is the 19th woman to receive this prestigious 122-year-old prize, following Maria Ressa of the Philippines, who was a co-recipient in 2021 along with Russia’s Dmitry Muratov.
• Born on 21 April 1972, Mohammadi was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize a year after Iran witnessed widespread protests following the tragic death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody.
• Mohammadi’s tireless struggle for women’s rights has taken an immense toll on her life. She has been arrested 13 times, along with five convictions, resulting in a total prison sentence of 31 years and a punishment of 154 lashes.
• Mohammadi is currently serving 12 years in Tehran’s Evin Prison for charges, including spreading propaganda against the state. Mohammadi also holds the position of deputy head at the Defenders of Human Rights Center, an NGO headed by Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
• Reacting to the development, Mohammadi’s husband Taghi Rahmani said that the Nobel Prize will embolden her fight for human rights, but more importantly, “this is in fact a prize for the ‘women, life and freedom’ movement.”

File picture of Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi
| Photo Credit: via Reuters

The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Iranian women’s rights advocate Narges Mohammadi will further encourage her struggle and the movement she leads, her husband told Reuters on Friday.

“This Nobel Prize will embolden Narges’ fight for human rights, but more importantly, this is in fact a prize for the woman, life and freedom (movement),” Mohammadi’s husband Taghi Ramahi said in an interview at his home in Paris.

Ms. Mohammadi, an Iranian women’s rights advocate serving some 12 years in jail, won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a decision likely to anger Tehran.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which decides the annual award, urged Iran to release Ms. Mohammadi, one of the nation’s leading activists who has campaigned for both women’s rights and the abolition of the death penalty.