Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has began a hunger strike in her Iranian jail in protest of limitations on medical treatment for her and other convicts, as well as the Islamic republic’s requirement that women wear the headscarf, her family said on Monday.
Mohammadi, a veteran rights activist presently imprisoned in Tehran’s Evin jail, was given the Nobel Peace Prize in October “for her fight against women’s oppression in Iran.”
“Narges Mohammadi informed her family today, via a message from Evin Prison, that she began a hunger strike several hours ago.” In a statement, her family stated, “We are concerned about Narges Mohammadi’s physical condition and health.”
Mohammadi refuses to wear a hijab, the head covering, under any circumstances Since immediately after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, women have been required to wear overing in public places.
Prison authorities in response have refused to transfer Mohammadi, who suffers from heart and lung conditions, to a hospital outside Evin for treatment.
The family said in the statement that she was in “urgent” need of medical treatment outside prison.
“Narges went on a hunger strike today in protesting two things: The Islamic Republic’s policy of delaying and neglecting medical care for sick inmates… (and) the policy of ‘mandatory hijab’ for Iranian women,” the statement said.
“The Islamic republic is responsible for anything that happens to our beloved Narges,” it said. “It’s been a week now that they are refusing to give her the medical aid she needs.”
First arrested 22 years ago, Mohammadi has spent much of the past two decades in and out of jail over her campaigning for human rights in Iran.
She has most recently been incarcerated since November 2021 and has not seen her children, now based in France, for eight years.
