Narges Mohammadi, the Iranian human rights defender and 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is in a critical condition following a cardiac episode last month, her foundation and family warned on Wednesday. Supporters say visible signs of deterioration were observed during a second prison visit on 11 April, and that her life faces "immediate and irreparable" risk if her situation continues.
According to her foundation, Mohammadi suffered a heart attack on 24 March while detained at Zanjan prison — a city in northwestern Iran — and was left unconscious for more than an hour without anyone performing resuscitation. A cardiologist who examined her shortly afterwards told the family the episode was partly caused by medication prescribed by prison doctors. Her brother, Hamidreza Mohammadi, based in Norway, said she has since grown "extremely weak" and has suffered significant weight loss. He also reported that she is being held in a cell with inmates charged with murder and has received repeated death threats from some of them.
Mohammadi was arrested in December 2025 in Mashhad, a city in eastern Iran, after publicly criticising the country's religious authorities at a funeral ceremony. She was subsequently transferred to Zanjan prison, where contact with her family has been severely restricted. In February, she was sentenced to an additional six years in prison for allegedly endangering national security and a further eighteen months for propaganda against Iran's Islamic system — charges widely condemned by human rights groups as politically motivated. She staged a week-long hunger strike at the time to demand the right to make phone calls.
Mohammadi has spent much of the past two decades in and out of Iranian prisons for her activism against the death penalty and the country's compulsory hijab laws. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 while already incarcerated. Her latest arrest came before a major wave of protests against the Iranian government, which authorities suppressed in January in a crackdown reported to have killed thousands.
Why this matters: Mohammadi's case has become one of the most prominent symbols of Iran's treatment of political prisoners and its suppression of women's rights activism. Reports of her deteriorating health amid allegations of medical negligence and physical threats in custody are likely to intensify international pressure on Tehran, particularly as Western governments and human rights organisations continue to scrutinise conditions inside Iranian jails.