Not caring, wearing a veil… Why Iranian Narges Mohammadi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is starting a hunger strike

The decision comes after prison authorities refused to authorize his transfer to hospital. Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi, winner of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, has begun a hunger strike in a Tehran prison to protest the lack of medical care for prisoners and the obligation of women to wear the burqa, his family announced Monday.

“Narges Mohammadi told her family that she started her hunger strike a few hours ago. We are worried about his health,” his relatives said in a statement. The 51-year-old Iranian woman, who has been arrested and convicted several times, has been held in Evin prison in the Iranian capital since 2021.

Need urgent hospitalization

On Thursday, her family said the activist, whose health was unstable, had been refused transfer to hospital by prison authorities because she did not want to cover her head. According to an electrocardiogram performed by a doctor in prison, she needs urgent hospitalization, her relatives say. “The Islamic Republic is responsible for whatever may happen to our beloved Narges,” the statement said.

The Nobel Committee, for its part, said in a press release that it was “deeply concerned” about the health of Narges Mohammadi. “Requiring detainees to wear a hijab while hospitalized is inhumane and morally unacceptable,” said committee chair Berit Reiss-Andersen, calling on Iranian authorities to provide medical care to all detainees who need it. The RSF Secretary General, in turn, condemned the “odious measure” against X.

Free speech organization Pen International said it was “extremely concerned” about Mohammadi’s condition and said Iranian authorities “bear responsibility for putting his life in danger.”

An anti-death penalty and women’s rights activist, Narges Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Prize in October for her “struggle against the oppression of women in Iran and her struggle to promote human rights and freedom for all.” She is one of the main faces of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising in Iran.

The movement, which saw women remove their veils, cut their hair and demonstrate in the streets, was sparked by the death last year of 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini after she was arrested in Tehran for failing to comply with the law. strict Islamic dress code. The protest was harshly suppressed.