The family of the jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi have said she should never be returned to prison in Iran after being allowed to leave for urgent medical treatment.
Ms Mohammadi, 54, won the coveted award in 2023 while in prison in Iran after campaigning to advance women's rights and abolish the death penalty, but her family say her “life hangs in the balance” after she suffered a heart attack in March.
Her family had called for her to be transferred from Zanjan Prison, where she was serving her sentence and from where she was taken to hospital to receive urgent medical care.
She is now at Tehran's Pars Hospital receiving treatment from her own medical team after being transferred by ambulance, the Narges Mohammadi Foundation said.
“Narges Mohammadi’s life hangs in the balance,” said her family in a statement issued through the foundation. “While she is currently hospitalised following a catastrophic health failure, a temporary transfer is not enough. Narges must never be returned to the conditions that broke her health.”
The family previously said she has dangerously high blood pressure, has lost almost 20kg in weight and was found unconscious in her cell last month after a heart attack.
They called for “the immediate quashing of all unjust sentences against her and the dismissal of every fabricated charge used to silence her”.
“Her freedom is a matter of life and death – not only for Narges, but for every prisoner of conscience still unjustly languishing in Iranian cells,” they said.
Her husband Taghi Rahmani lives in Paris. The couple have 19-year-old twin children.
Ms Mohammadi began serving a 13-year sentence in 2021 after a court had found her guilty of committing “propaganda activity against the state” and “collusion against state security”.
The human rights activist has for decades campaigned for democracy in Iran, and against discrimination and oppression of women.
She has been arrested more than a dozen times, sentenced to a total 44 years in prison and 154 lashes, and has spent more than a decade behind bars.
Ms Mohammadi was granted temporary release from Tehran's notorious Evin Prison on medical grounds in 2024 but was rearrested last December at a memorial service for a fellow activist.
Her family said she was taken to hospital after being beaten during her arrest.
In early February, Ms Mohammadi was sentenced to an additional seven and a half years in prison after being convicted of “gathering and collusion” as well as “propaganda activities”, her lawyer said.
