Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi began a hunger strike from her Tehran prison cell Monday to protest authorities' neglect of sick inmates and criminalization of women who refuse to wear the hijab. File photo by Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA-EFE
Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi began a hunger strike from her Tehran prison cell Monday where she is serving a 10-year sentence to protest authorities' neglect of sick inmates and criminalization of women who refuse to wear the hijab.
Mohammadi who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October, made the announcement via her supporters on social media after a week of unsuccessful appeals by her lawyers to get her transferred to hospital for emergency medical care prescribed by prison medical staff.
The 51-year-old has a serious heart condition which following an echocardiogram the doctor at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison said required she be immediately transferred to a specialist heart and lung center for treatment.
"We are concerned about Nargess Mohammadi's physical condition and health. After a week of Narges' follow-ups from prison and her lawyer's appeals to judicial authorities, the prosecutor has blocked her transfer to the hospital, her supporters wrote.
"The Islamic Republic is responsible for anything that happens to our beloved Narges."
Since first being arrested in 2011, mother of two Mohammadi has spent most of the last decade in and out of detention for her civil rights advocacy, and women's rights in particular, that began several years earlier when she became involved with the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Tehran,
Mohammadi began protesting against Iran's excessive use of the death penalty -- it is among the countries that execute the highest proportion of their citizens -- while out on bail, resulting in her being re-imprisoned in 2015.
During her incarceration, she began speaking out against the use of torture and sexualized violence against women prisoners in Iran's penal system, stepping up her activism and helping direct the national protest movement that took hold in the wake of the September 2022 death of Mahsa Jina Amini in police custody.
In awarding the Peace Prize, the Nobel Committee called Mohammadi a woman human rights advocate and a" freedom fighter."
"The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to honor her courageous fight for human rights, freedom and democracy in Iran," it said.
Her mentor, judge-turned-political rights activist Shirin Ebadi, became the Islamic world's first woman to win the Peace Prize in 2003.
