Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi, 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has started a hunger strike in prison to protest the lack of medical care for prisoners and the obligation for women to wear the veil, her family announced on Monday .
“Narges Mohammadi informed her family that she had started a hunger strike several hours ago. We are worried about his health,” his relatives said in a statement.
Ms. Mohammadi, 51, repeatedly arrested and convicted, has been detained since 2021 in Evin prison in Tehran.
On Thursday, her family had already announced that the activist, whose health condition is fragile, was being refused transfer to hospital by the prison authorities because she did not want to cover her head.
According to an electrocardiogram carried out by a doctor in prison, she needs emergency hospitalization, the family specifies.
“The Islamic Republic is responsible for anything that may happen to our beloved Narges,” the statement said.
An activist against the death penalty and women’s rights, Narges Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Prize in October for “her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight for the promotion of human rights and freedom for all”.
She is one of the main faces of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising in Iran.
The movement, which saw women remove the veil, cut their hair and demonstrate in the streets, was sparked by the death last year of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, Mahsa Amini, after her arrest in Tehran for non-compliance with the strict Islamic dress code. The protest was severely repressed.