Imprisoned Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi will go on a new hunger strike to show solidarity towards the Baha’i religious minority in Iran.
Her strike coincides with the ceremony of awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Mohammadi, which will be held in Oslo, the capital of Norway on December 10.
“On International Human Rights Day, 10th of December, I will also go on a hunger strike in protest against violations of human rights in Iran and in solidarity with the hunger strike of Baha’i women prisoners in Evin Prison,” said a post on Mohammadi’s Instagram account.
In October this year, she was awarded the Nobel prize for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran. She is the fifth human rights and pro-democracy activist who has won this prestigious international award while in prison or under house arrest.
In the absence of an imprisoned human rights activist, the award will be presented to her husband Taghi Rahmani and their 17-year-old twin children, Kiana and Ali.
During the ceremony, the twins will recite a speech written by their mother.
On Saturday, December 9, Ali Rahmani said in an interview with Iran International that my mother should have attended the Nobel Prize ceremony, but she is in prison and Kiana and I are trying to be our mother’s voice.
Kiana said this award is not only for her mother but “for all Iranian fighting women”.
The twins, who have been living in France since 2015, have not seen their mother in nine years.
Kiana expressed a pessimistic outlook on her mother’s reunion, while Ali expressed strong optimism about it, Reuters reported.
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.”
Earlier in November, Mohammadi went on a hunger strike to demand her right to be transferred to the hospital without covering her head.
Who is Narges Mohammadi?
Fifty-one-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.
