Nobel Peace Prize awarded to jailed Iranian women's right campaigner

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Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to jailed Iranian women’s right campaigner Narges Mohammadi

  • Mohammadi, a journalist, was sentenced to 30 months in prison and 80 lashes after criticising the government and accusing officials of torture and harassment

The Nobel Peace Prize was on Friday awarded to imprisoned Iranian women’s rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi.

Mohammadi was honoured ‘for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all,’ said Berit Reiss-Andersen, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.

Narges Mohammadi, 49, a journalist, was sentenced to 80 lashes and 30 months in prison in 2021 after she criticised the death penalty and accusing prison officials of ‘torture and harassment’.

The prominent human rights activist was handed the sentence after being found guilty of ‘propaganda against the system’ of the Islamic republic for condemning Iran’s use of capital punishment.

Iranian women’s rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi is seen at her home in Tehran on September 4 2001

The head of the Nobel Peace Prize, Berit Reiss-Andersen, announces the Peace Prize for 2023 in Oslo, Friday, Oct. 6, 2023

The mother-of-two was also found guilty of ‘rebellion against the prison authority’ after she accused prison guards of torture. 

Mohammadi, a campaigner against the death penalty, was arrested in May 2015 when she was spokeswoman for the Defenders of Human Rights Centre in Iran, which was founded by lawyer and Nobel Peace price laureate Shirin Ebadi. 

While serving her first prison sentence, Mohammadi was moved from Tehran’s Evin prison to a prison in Zanjan, in northwestern Iran, according to Reporters Without Borders.

The journalist had ‘lodged a complaint against her immoral and illegal transfer,’ her lawyer said.

She had also claimed she was ‘beaten and harassed’ in Evin Prison, reports Etemad newspaper.

‘Instead of examining her complaint, justice officials opened another case against my client,’ Mr Behzadi-Rad said.

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