Tehran: Iranian authorities have denied Narges Mohammadi, a human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, from attending her father’s funeral on Thursday, February 29.
Karim Mohammadi, passed away at the age of 92 on Tuesday, February 27 and the burial took place in Zanjan, northwest of Tehran.
Karim has been unable to visit Narges for 22 months and also denied phone contact with her daughter for three months.
In a statement, Narges’s family said, “Heartbreakingly, Narges Mohammadi was denied the opportunity to attend the ceremony and bid her final farewell to her father.”
“My patient father, forgive me. Today, as I bid you goodbye from behind these bars, my heart aches with an unbearable weight. May you rest in eternal peace, surrounded by the love that forever binds us,” Mohammadi wrote on X on Thursday.
Who is Narges Mohammadi?
51-year-old Narges Mohammadi has been a prominent human rights figure in Iran for years.
She is the deputy director of the Defenders of Human Rights Center and currently remains lodged in Tehran’s Evin Prison.
Mohammadi is currently serving a 12-year sentence in Tehran’s Evin Prison for spreading propaganda against the state.
Narges’s husband, Taqi Rahmani, is a political activist living in exile in Paris with their two children. The two have been separated for years.
The Iranian regime has arrested the activist 13 times, convicted her five times, and sentenced her to a total of 31 years in prison, and 154 lashes, Norwegian Nobel Committee chair Berit Reiss-Andersen said at the announcement ceremony.
On October 6, the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo announced that the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize would be awarded to Narges “for her struggle against the oppression of women in Iran and her struggle to promote human rights and freedom for all.”
