Iranian Nobel Prize winner injured in prison clashes with guards: family

Paris:

Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi and other inmates were injured in clashes that broke out in Tehran’s Evin prison following a wave of executions, her family said, raising fresh concerns about her health.

Iranian authorities acknowledged that a clash occurred on Tuesday, but blamed Mohammadi on a “provocation” and denied that any of the prisoners were beaten.

Human rights activist Mohammadi, 52, who won the 2023 prize for her campaign, including against the death penalty, has been in prison since November 2021 and has spent much of the last decade in and out of prison.

Mohammadi’s family, based in Paris, emphasized that they have had no direct contact with her since her right to make telephone calls was revoked in November.

But he said he had been informed by several other families of detainees held in Evin that clashes broke out on Tuesday when the prisoners launched a protest in the courtyard against the executions.

According to human rights groups, around 30 convicts were hanged this week, including Gholamreza (Reza) Rasaei, who the Iranian judiciary said was executed on Tuesday in connection with the 2022 protests.

“The prisoners’ protest against Reza Rasaei’s execution led to a violent crackdown by prison guards and security officials,” Mohammadi’s family said in a statement on Thursday, citing the reports.

“Several women who were in charge of the security forces were severely beaten. The confrontation intensified, resulting in physical injuries to some prisoners.”

– ‘Deeply concerned’ –

The family said that after being punched in the chest, Mohammadi suffered a respiratory attack and severe chest pain, which caused her to faint and collapse on the floor in the prison yard.

She was injured and was treated in the prison infirmary, but was not transferred to an outside hospital, he said.

“We are deeply concerned for his health and well-being under these circumstances,” the family said.

Family members and supporters earlier this month expressed concerns about Mohammadi’s condition, saying they had been informed of the results of medical tests carried out in July “which showed a worrying deterioration in his health”.

For the past eight months, Mohammadi has suffered from acute back and knee pain, including a herniated disc. In 2021, a stent was placed in one of his main coronary arteries due to a blockage.

The Iranian prison authority denied that the prisoners were beaten and blamed the clash on Mohammadi and other inmates who it said broke the lock on an external door.

Two prisoners “had heart palpitations due to stress”, but medical examinations determined that their general condition “is favourable”, he said in a statement, according to the Tasnim news agency.

– ‘Alarmingly loud’ –

Reports suggest growing tensions in the women’s wing of Evin Prison after two Kurdish activists, Sharifeh Mohammadi and Pakhshan Azizi, were sentenced to death on charges of belonging to an illegal group.

Rights groups say Iran has stepped up its use of capital punishment after a brief lull in the run-up to the June-July elections that brought reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian to power.

Authorities executed 29 people in two prisons in Tehran’s satellite city of Karaj on Wednesday alone, according to the Norway-based organization Iran Human Rights.

Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, “is extremely concerned” about the reports, spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell told journalists in Geneva. “This represents an alarmingly high number of executions in such a short period of time.”

Mohammadi continued to campaign even behind bars and strongly supported the protests that erupted across Iran following the September 2022 death of Mahsa Amini in custody. The 22-year-old Iranian Kurd was arrested for an alleged violation of Iran’s strict dress code for women.

She received a new one-year prison sentence in June for “propaganda against the State”, adding to sentences that already totaled 12 years and three months in prison, 154 lashes, two years of exile and various social and political restrictions.

(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)