Sick Iran Nobel winner at risk of dying in custody, supporters warn

Representatives of her Paris-based support committee said Mohammadi, who won the 2023 peace prize for her decades of campaigning for human rights in Iran, said she was fighting for her life after being hospitalised under guard for the last five days due to her heart condition.

"We are not just fighting for the freedom of Narges, we are fighting so that her heart continues to beat," said her lawyer Chirinne Ardakani at a news conference of her supporters, adding that Mohmamadi was now "between life and death".

She compared Mohammadi's plight to that of Chinese dissident and Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died under guard in 2017, and Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a Russian prison camp in 2024 in what his supporters described as state-sanctioned murder.

Jonathan Dagher of Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which is part of Mohammadi's support committee, said: "This is the first time we are saying that she is between life and death, that there is a risk of death."

"We must act before it is too late," he added.
'Never so afraid'
Mohammadi, 54, who has spent much of the past two decades in and out of prison for her activism, was arrested most recently in December after denouncing the Islamic republic at a funeral for a lawyer.

Already suffering from a heart condition, she had two suspected heart attacks, one on March 24 and another on May 1, in prison in Zanjan in northern Iran, according to her supporters.

After the most recent incident, she was rushed to hospital in Zanjan for treatment but remained under constant guard, Ardakani said.

Mohammadi is experiencing an "unprecedented degradation" of her health, said Ardakani.

"We have never been so afraid for Narges's life -- she could leave us at any moment," she added.

Mohammadi has lost 20 kilogrammes (44 pounds) in prison, has difficulty speaking and is currently "unrecognisable" from her former state before her latest arrest.

Her condition has been affected by the war between Iran and the United States and Israel, with at least three air strikes close to her prison.

Her supporters want Mohammadi to be transferred to Tehran for treatment by her personal medical team, but there has been no sign of her being moved from Zanjan.

In a separate statement, the secretary general of Amnesty International said Iranian authorities were putting Mohammadi's life "at risk by subjecting her to torture or other ill-treatment through deliberate denial of timely and adequate specialised healthcare".

Describing Mohammadi as a "prisoner of conscience", Agnes Callamard said Iranian authorities were denying the activist "the urgent specialised medical treatment she requires in a hospital outside prison in Tehran".
'Minimal care'
Mohammadi's twin teenage children Ali and Kiana Rahmani, who live and study in Paris, have now not seen their mother for over a decade and received the Nobel prize on her behalf while she was in jail.

"The care provided is minimal while being continuously under guard. This is not a treatment," said her daughter Kiana, in a statement read out at the news conference.

Ardakani urged the French foreign ministry and President Emmanuel Macron to take a tougher line on Mohammadi's case.

"We are expecting the president of the republic to take a strong position. I don't think this is something excessive," she said.

Mohammadi strongly backed the 2022-2023 protests sparked by the death in custody of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini but was arrested before the major demonstrations that erupted in January this year.

As well as campaigning against capital punishment and the obligatory headscarf for women, she has also regularly predicted the downfall of the clerical system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.