BEIRUT (AP) — Iran’s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi may have suffered a heart attack, one of her lawyers said Tuesday.
Two of Mohammadi’s lawyers and her sister visited her in Zanjan Prison in northwestern Iran on Sunday, her French lawyer, Chirinne Ardakani, told The Associated Press after being briefed by the two Iranian lawyers who went to the prison.
“When my colleagues saw her, they were shocked because she was very pale and had lost a lot of weight, and she was not alone but aided by a nurse,” Ardakani said.
She added that, according to Mohammadi, her fellow inmates told her that on March 24 she was unconscious for over an hour. Upon later examination at the prison’s clinic, a doctor told her that she probably had had a heart attack.
“She said she has since been having chest pain more than once a day and she has breathing difficulties and that she is in a very bad state,” Ardakani said.
She said Mohammadi has been denied transfer to the hospital or to visit her cardiologist. A prison official was present throughout the brief visit by Mohammadi’s lawyers.
It was not immediately possible to speak to her lawyers in Iran, who do not talk to the media. An internet blackout imposed by the Iranian authorities has stifled almost all communications from the country. According to Ardakani, speaking to foreign journalists without permission and surveillance from authorities is a criminal offense that can carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
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.
Mohammadi’s health has been worsening
Last month, Mohammadi’s husband, Taghi Rahmani, told The Associated Press that her health was worsening, in part because of a beating she endured during her arrest in December. He said multiple men hit and kicked her in her side, head and neck.
Prior to her arrest 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 has a heart condition and suffered multiple heart attacks while imprisoned before undergoing emergency surgery in 2022, her supporters say.
“We are very worried that the regime is seeking to exhaust (Mohammadi), to wear her down, slowly killing her,” Ardakani said. She said Mohammadi still had signs of bruising on her body, more than three months after her violent detention.
Last month, the Nobel committee condemned the “ongoing life-threatening mistreatment” of Mohammadi in a statement.
A Nobel prize awarded while in prison
In 2023, Mohammadi became the fifth laureate to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while in prison, further amplifying her voice that supported 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’s hard-line Shiite theocracy, 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.
At dawn Tuesday, an airstrike reportedly hit a Shiite religious gathering place in Zanjan, just a couple of kilometers away (about 2 miles) from the prison where Mohammadi is being held.
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Gambrell reported from Dubai. Associated Press writers Alex Turnbull in Paris and Amir-Hussein Radjy in Cairo contributed to this report.
