Geneva:

UN experts on Tuesday accused Iran of denying jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi proper healthcare, saying she reportedly suffered physical violence earlier this month.

Human rights activist Mohammadi, who won the 2023 Nobel for her campaigning, was hurt along with other female inmates in clashes that erupted at Tehran’s Evin prison, her family said earlier in August.

Mohammadi “was reportedly subjected to physical violence” in Evin on August 6, during which she “allegedly lost consciousness, and sustained injuries to her ribcage and other parts of her body”, the experts said.

Iranian authorities acknowledged a confrontation took place but blamed Mohammadi for “provocation” and denied any prisoners had been beaten.

Mohammadi, 52, has been jailed since November 2021 and has spent much of the past decade in and out of prison.

“Our deep concerns about the physical and mental integrity of Narges Mohammadi have been communicated to the Iranian government,” the UN experts said in a joint statement.

“Once again we call on Iranian authorities to release her immediately and ensure her access to full medical care without delay, along with other detainees.”

They said that over the past eight months, Mohammadi had been suffering from acute back and knee pain, including a herniated spinal disc, according to medical specialists and scan examinations.

“The denial of medical care appears to be used to punish and silence Mohammadi inside prison. These reports raise serious concerns regarding her right to health and physical well-being,” the experts said.

The special rapporteurs are independent experts mandated by the UN Human Rights Council who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.

They said there was a pattern of ill-treatment of detainees in Iran.

“Such deprivations may amount to torture and inhuman treatment,” they said.

The panel reiterated its “calls for the immediate release of human rights defenders and all other individuals in Iranian detention facilities who are currently being held arbitrarily”.

Mohammadi has kept campaigning behind bars and strongly supported the protests that erupted across Iran following the September 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini. 

The 22-year-old Iranian Kurd had been arrested for an alleged breach of Iran’s strict dress rules for women.

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Iranian human rights activist and the vice president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC) Narges Mohammadi has been chosen for the Peace Nobel.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi has been chosen by the Royal Swedish Academy for the coveted 2023 Nobel Peace Prize for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.

“The 2023 peace laureate Narges Mohammadi is a woman, a human rights advocate, and a freedom fighter. This year’s NobelPeacePrize also recognises the hundreds of thousands of people who have demonstrated against the theocratic regime’s policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women,” the Academy said.

Last year, the Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski, the Russian human rights organisation Memorial, and the Ukrainian human rights organisation Centre for Civil Liberties.

Ms. Mohammadi is currently lodged in a prison in Iran. In fact, 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.

The motto adopted by the Iranian demonstrators – “Woman – Life – Freedom” – suitably expresses the dedication and work of Narges Mohammadi, the Academy said.

Ms. Mohammadi advocates against death penalty in a country that reports most state executions. A strong advocate of women’s rights since her days as a college student.

Ms. Mohammadi was arrested for the first time in 2011 for her efforts to assist incarcerated activists and their families.

Two years later, after her release on bail, Ms Mohammadi immersed herself in a campaign against use of the death penalty. This lead to her re-arrest in 2015.

Upon her return to prison, she began opposing the regime’s systematic use of torture and sexualised violence against political prisoners, especially women, that is practised in Iranian prisons.

When Kurdish woman Mahsa Jina Amini was killed by Iranian morality police when she was in custody for not covering her head, Iran witnessed one of the largest anti-government protests. Many protestors were lodged in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, where Ms. Mohammadi was an inmate.

From prison she expressed support for the demonstrators and organised solidarity actions among her fellow inmates. The prison authorities responded by imposing even stricter conditions. She was prohibited from receiving calls and visitors. She, however, managed to smuggle out an article which the New York Times published on the one-year anniversary of Mahsa Jina Amini’s killing, which highlighted the shocking condition of the women inmates, the torture, abuse and solitary confinement they are subjected to.

In 2018, Mohammadi, an engineer and physicist, was awarded the 2018 Andrei Sakharov Prize, which recognizes outstanding leadership or achievements of scientists in upholding human rights. She was close to Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, who founded the banned Defenders of Human Rights Center, and currently its vice president.

The Nobel Prize announcements kicked off on October 2 with the Physiology or Medicine Nobel jointly awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their “discoveries concerning nucleoside base modification that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.

Explained | All about the winners of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize 

The Royal Swedish Academy of Science announced on October 3 that the Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L’Huillier “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electro dynamics in matter”

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is shared by three scientists – Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.

The Nobel announcements will draw to a close on October 9 with the announcement of Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, popularly known as Economic sciences Nobel.

The prizes carry a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (nearly $900,000) and will be handed out on Dec. 10. The money comes from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, in 1895.