Narges Mohammadi posing for a portrait in Tehran, Iran, on Feb. 9, 2025. AP
The Narges Mohammadi Foundation said the Nobel Prize laureate had two episodes of complete loss of consciousness and a severe cardiac crisis.
Earlier Friday, Mohammadi had fainted twice in prison in Zanjan in northwestern Iran, according to the foundation. She was believed to have suffered a heart attack in late March, according to her lawyers, who visited her a few days after the incident. At the time, she appeared pale, underweight, and needed a nurse to help her walk.
The hospital transfer comes “after 140 days of systematic medical neglect,” since her arrest on Dec. 12, the foundation claimed.
“This transfer was done as an unavoidable necessity after prison doctors determined her condition could not be managed on-site, despite standing medical recommendations that she be treated by her specialised team in Tehran,” the foundation said.
Mohammadi’s family had advocated for her transfer to adequate medical facilities for weeks.
The foundation, quoting her family, said her transfer Friday to a hospital in Zanjan was “a desperate, ‘last-minute’ action that may be too late to address her critical needs.”
Mohammadi's brother Hamidreza Mohammadi, who lives in Oslo, Norway, said in an audio message shared with The Associated Press by the foundation that her family is “fighting for her life.”
On March 24, Narges Mohammadi’s fellow inmates found her unconscious, her lawyers said she told them during the visit a few days later. Upon later examination at the prison’s clinic, a doctor told her that she had probably had a heart attack. She had chest pain and breathing difficulties since.
Won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023
Mohammadi, 53, a rights lawyer who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 while in prison, was arrested in December during a visit to the eastern Iranian city of Mashhad and sentenced to seven more years in prison.
Before her arrest on Dec. 12, Mohammadi had already been serving a sentence of 13 years and nine months on charges of collusion against state security and propaganda against Iran’s government, but had been released on furlough since late 2024 over medical concerns.
During that furlough, Mohammadi kept up her activism with public protests and international media appearances, including demonstrating in front of Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, where she had been held.
In February, a Revolutionary Court in Mashhad sentenced Mohammadi to an additional seven years. Such courts typically issue verdicts with little or no opportunity for defendants to contest their charges.
Mohammadi suffered multiple heart attacks while imprisoned before undergoing emergency surgery in 2022, her supporters say.
In 2023, Mohammadi became the fifth laureate to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while in prison, further amplifying her voice in support of widespread protests that swept Iran after the death the year before of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the country’s morality police for not properly wearing the mandatory headscarf.
Her selection enraged Iran’sregime, which increased her prison time and later sent guards to rough her up along with other prisoners who were protesting inside Evin Prison.
Yet Mohammadi remained defiant, even issuing boycott calls for the 2024 election that President Masoud Pezeshkian won. She maintained that one day Iran’s government would change due to popular pressure.
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