The Free Narges Coalition condemns the additional prison sentences handed down to human rights defender, writer, and journalist Narges Mohammadi this week, and urges the international community to take concrete steps to protect the safety and psychological well-being of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate against the aggravated threats to her life and health under detention in Iran.
The Free Narges Coalition Steering Committee stated: “The situation of Iran’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate under detention is not an isolated example, but an indicator of the vulnerability and risks faced by those detained for their defense of human rights or expression. The information we have received from verified sources about the condition of Narges Mohammadi and other political prisoners is deeply worrying. Following the nationwide demonstrations and ensuing massacre of protesters, the government is doubling down on dangerously harsh treatment of its growing number of political prisoners. Human rights defenders, journalists, writers, and artists are at the forefront of the fight for a free and democratic Iran. Narges Mohammadi and all prisoners of conscience must be freed immediately; they must have access to their chosen lawyer, regular contact with family, and medical care.”
On February 7, 2026, Mohammadi’s lawyer announced that the Nobel laureate was transferred to Branch 1 of the Mashhad Revolutionary Court despite her objections. In protest against the unjust judicial process, she refused to provide a defense and was immediately handed down two harsh sentences. According to these new rulings, the human rights defender was sentenced to six years prison for “assembly and collusion against national security” and 18 months on the charge of “propaganda against the state.” Additionally, the judge issued supplementary punishments, including two years of internal exile to the city of Khosf, South Khorasan province in Iran and a two-year additional travel ban. Mohammadi, currently serving multiple prison sentences in a high security detention center in Mashhad, is facing more than 17 years of imprisonment since 2021.
On December 12, 2025, Narges Mohammadi was arrested with a level of brutality unprecedented in her long history of judicial harassment. While attending the funeral of the late Iranian human rights lawyer Khosrow Alikordi in Mashhad, Mohammadi spoke to those gathered, offering a message of peace, unity, and national solidarity. It was during this peaceful assembly that plainclothes agents arrested her and others in an extremely violent manner.
According to verified information, security forces encircled Mohammadi and other women defenders present and beat them repeatedly with wooden sticks and batons over their heads and between their legs, bruising her genital area and possibly fracturing her pelvic bone. During this assault, the agents threatened Mohammadi that “We will make your mother sit in mourning for you,” and that “Today is the last day of your life.” She was told that because they believed that she had “driven a dagger into the heart of the Islamic Republic,” they would “put a dagger back into her heart.” She was dragged across the ground by her hair with such force that sections of her scalp were torn away, leaving visible bald patches and open wounds. Inside the transport vehicle, agents broke another woman’s nose while forcing her to surrender her phone.
Suffering from nausea, intense chest pain, and unusually high blood pressure, Mohammadi has reported feeling numb and being unable to breathe. When in solitary confinement, she has been overheard asking for help while shouting “I’m dying,” raising the possibility that she thought she was suffering a heart attack. Furthermore, she reported to not be able to sit down for several days due to the pelvic injury. Officials took detailed photographs of her extensive injuries, focusing specifically on the raw wounds on her scalp. During the first week of her arbitrary detention, Narges Mohammadi was transferred twice to hospital under heavy security measures. A physician confirmed that Mohammadi, who has a heart stent from a previous surgery, required urgent specialized cardiac care after serious medical negligence underdetention. In the first week of February, suffering from severe nausea, she was transferred again for a head scan, likely to Razavi Hospital in Mashhad, where doctors also provided an ointment for her scalp and gave her several unexplained injections. She was then returned to solitary confinement for weeks, kept in a windowless cell with constant artificial lighting that made it impossible to distinguish day from night, forced to sleep on a thin rug over ceramic tiles and not appropriately fed.
Narges Mohammadi’s life remains in immediate danger. Despite her critical state, she is subjected to lengthy interrogation sessions to force a confession and a condemnation of the protests, which began on December 28 and continued for several weeks in January, leading to the killing of thousands of protesters. She has refused to comply, despite direct threats that she “won’t live to see the sun.” On the evening of February 2, guards raided her cell and assaulted all detainees with electric shock devices. Prior to her arrest, Mohammadi was undergoing diagnostic testing for breast tumors; interrupting this, combined with cardiac distress and physical trauma, presents a high risk. Over two months into her unjust arrest, Mohammadi has been allowed only two short phone calls, both of which were abruptly cut short as she tried to recount her detention situation and current health condition.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate began a hunger strike on Monday, February 2, to protest her continued unlawful detention, her dire detention conditions, and the denial of contact with her family or lawyers—realities faced by numerous prisoners currently held in Iran. Mohammadi ended her hunger strike six days later, amidst alarming reports about her health.
Narges Mohammadi is a human rights defender, journalist, author, and the deputy director and spokesperson of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC) in Iran. Having spent more than 10 years of her life behind bars, her current period of detention began in December 2025. Throughout her life, she has been sentenced to a total of 44 years in prison, which includes previous sentences totaling 13 years and nine months for charges such as committing “propaganda activity against the state” and “collusion against state security.” She is the recipient of numerous international awards for her tireless struggle for human rights, including the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, the 2023 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, the 2023 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award, and the 2022 Reporters Without Borders Prize for Courage.
This statement is issued by the Free Narges Coalition steering committee and does not necessarily reflect the position of all Coalition members. The steering committee is led by the Narges Foundation, PEN America, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and Front Line Defenders.
Join us in calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Narges Mohammadi and other political prisoners in Iran.
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