Iranian activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who has been imprisoned repeatedly in her three-decade campaign for women's rights, has been sentenced to new prison terms totalling seven and a half years, a group supporting her said on Sunday.
Ms Mohammadi, 53, was on a week-long hunger strike that ended on Sunday, the Narges Foundation said in a statement. It said she told her lawyer, Mostafa Nili, in a phone call on Sunday from prison that she had received her sentence on Saturday.
"After weeks of absolute isolation and a total cut-off of communication, she was finally able to describe her situation in a brief phone call with her lawyer," the foundation said.
Ms Mohammadi's sentence includes six years imprisonment for assembly and collusion against national security, and one and a half years for propaganda against the government. She was also punished with two years of internal exile in the city of Khusf and a two-year travel ban.
She was being held in a detention centre in Mashhad after being arrested in the north-eastern city on December 12 at a memorial ceremony for Khosrow Alikordi, 46, a human rights lawyer. He was found dead in his office earlier in the month in circumstances that activists said were suspicious.
Prosecutor Hasan Hematifar told reporters at the time that Ms Mohammadi made provocative remarks at the memorial ceremony and encouraged those present "to chant norm-breaking slogans" and "disturb the peace".
Video circulated by the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency showed her attending the ceremony without a headscarf, a symbolic act of defiance in Iran.
In footage aired by Persian-language broadcasters outside Iran, she is seen standing on top of a vehicle with a microphone, urging mourners to chant slogans including: “Long live Iran”, “We fight, we die, we accept no humiliation”, and “Death to the dictator”.
Ms Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 for her advocacy for women’s rights and political freedom in Iran. It was accepted on her behalf in Oslo by her twin children as she was in prison, having been arrested in November 2021. She was released in December 2024 on medical grounds.
She is expected to serve six years in jail for her latest conviction as prison terms in Iran run concurrently.
Her sentencing comes weeks after nationwide anti-government protests that posed the biggest challenge to the Iran's clerical regime since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The protests, which were sparked by a sharp fall in the currency and high inflation, were violently suppressed amid an internet blackout imposed by the authorities on January 8. Rights groups have estimated that at least 6,500 civilians were killed.
