Narges Mohammadi: Nobel Laureate Who Has Spent Many Years Imprisoned
Photo source, Reuters
In Oslo, the capital of Norway, on December 10, 2023, 17-year-old Jomlha placed the Nobel Peace Prize on an empty chair in honor of her mother.
In the acceptance speech, Narges Mohammadi’s daughter spoke about the hardships she experienced during her adolescence without her mother, emphasizing that her mother’s struggle for Iranian women’s human rights is a source of pride for them.
They were separated from their mother when they were eight years old while traveling from Iran to Europe.
At that time, their mother was imprisoned and remains in an Iranian prison to this day.
When the twins were two years old, Iranian authorities issued warnings: “Do not expect to avoid arrest just because you have small children; even children will be imprisoned.”
“You must leave Tehran.”
However, Narges refused to leave Tehran and remained actively involved in human rights activism. This dedication led her to become one of the two Iranian women to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Photo source, Anadolu via Getty Images
According to the Nobel Foundation, she has been arrested over 14 times, spent 31 years imprisoned, and endured torture on 154 occasions.
Despite serious health issues, she has been transferred from prison to prison over two decades, her family and activists report. She has faced physical and psychological torture for not wearing a hijab during interrogations, arrests, and court appearances.
On Sunday, May 10, 2026, she was transferred from prison to a hospital in Tehran due to her critical health condition.
Iranian officials have said that her prison sentence was temporarily suspended after paying a large bail. She is currently receiving treatment at Tehran Pars Hospital under a local medical team.
Her lawyer, Chirin Ardakani, states that she is suspected of suffering a heart attack in the northern Iranian city of Janjan and has been in intensive care for 10 days.
In the past four months, she has lost 20 kilograms and requires oxygen support for breathing.
Her brother Hamdireza, who lives in Norway, told reporters, “There is no doubt that the Iranian authorities want to get rid of Narges and activists like her.”
Political Activity
Mohammadi comes from a politically active family. She was born in Janjan, and many members of her family were politically assassinated on April 21, 1972.
Raised in Karaj in north-central Iran and the Kurdistan province in western Iran, she became politically active while studying applied physics at university.
In 1997, she actively campaigned for then-presidential candidate Mohammad Khatami.
During the 1999 parliamentary elections, she worked on a regional nationalist campaign supporting a mixture of Islamic principles and secular Iranian nationalism.
That same year, she married religious nationalist political activist Taghi Rahmani, who had spent 14 years in prison since 1980.
Their twins, Kiana and Ali Rahmani, were born on November 28, 2006.
Photo source, AFP via Getty Images
Mohammadi’s name became widely known in 2010 when, as vice president of the human rights organization DARC, authorities began cracking down.
She was immediately arrested from her home and subjected to harsh interrogation.
Her close colleague Shirin Ebadi, a former revolutionary judge and lawyer who won the Nobel Prize in 2003 as the first Iranian woman laureate, joined her in founding an organization in 2001 advocating for prisoners, women, and minority rights.
Photo source, AFP
Subsequently, Mohammadi moved from supporting structural reforms to openly criticizing the Islamic Republic government.
She voted in the May 2017 Iranian presidential election from Tehran’s Evin prison.
During the 2017 and 2018 anti-government protests, when security forces fired on demonstrators, Mohammadi and 14 other activists demanded a referendum for a secular government.
From inside prison, they declared September 16, 2022—the first anniversary of the death of Masa Amini, who died in police custody—as “The Day of Religious Authoritarian Government’s Oppression Against Women.”
Raising Slogans
Before winning the Nobel Prize, Mohammadi shared on the social media platform Clubhouse that her life was dedicated to implementing 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
On December 12, 2025, a photo of her was published showing her temporarily released from prison for medical treatment, shouting slogans from the roof of a car during the funeral ceremony of lawyer Khosro Ali Skordi.
She was arrested by security forces for refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic courts and sentenced to over seven years in prison with internal exile.
She stated she would not attend court hearings unless they were public and declared she would wear attire of her choice during appearances.
Photo source, Mohammadi family handout via Reuters
After the war between the US and Israel began in June 2025, Mohammadi, Ebadi, and five other Iranian activists called on the United Nations to take urgent decisive action, urging the Islamic Republic to stop uranium enrichment and prevent military engagement by both sides.
Along with 16 others, she supported the January 2026 street protests, calling for the removal of obstacles to peaceful transition away from an Islamic state.
Sharing details of torture and abuse endured in prison, she has publicly emerged as a life-loving figure.
Photos, videos, and commemorative events published from prison commonly show her singing or dancing with other female activists pursuing justice.