Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi is fighting for her life after months in prison without medical attention

“The last time I heard my mother’s voice was the night before December 12, when she was arrested for the fourteenth time,” says Narges Mohammadi’s daughter. The 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, now 54, has dedicated her entire life to defending human rights in Iran. In total, she has spent almost 10 years in prison, interspersed with brief periods of freedom. Years that have taken a heavy toll on her personal health. Today, she lies unconscious in a bed in the coronary care unit of a hospital in Zanjan province, her home region, and the same one where the prison is located in which she has spent the last 140 days.

Kiana and Ali Rahmani, her 20-year-old twin children, responded to questions from EL PAÍS through an intermediary, stating that denying their mother access to adequate cardiac care “goes far beyond negligence.” For Ali, not transferring her to a hospital in Tehran for proper diagnosis and specialized care constitutes “a deliberate form of torture.” Despite her critical condition, she receives only basic care such as an oxygen mask and monitoring.

According to them, all their requests for medical attention were rejected, even though their mother has a fragile heart with a stent and hypertension, in addition to suffering from daily headaches and constant chest pain accompanied by nausea.

The cost of Mohammadi’s activism hasn’t been just physical: it has also profoundly affected her personal and family life. When her husband, journalist and activist Taghi Rahmani, said goodbye to her in 2012 to go into exile in Paris, she never imagined that their separation would last so long. “You get married to be with someone, and not being able to be together is another burden. You can bear it, but it’s very difficult,” Rahmani explains in a video call. He himself spent 14 years in prison in Iran while Mohammadi fought for her freedom and that of other political prisoners.

Activism was what brought Mohammadi and Rahmani together when they met in 1996, and it is also what keeps them apart today.

When he suggested she leave Iran in 2011, she decided to stay. “I was very insistent and waited a year. During that time, I even survived an attack: a motorcycle hit me and sped away. They wanted to kill me. She kept insisting I leave Iran. I asked her to come with me, but she refused. Later she said, ‘I don’t know how to do activism outside the country, I don’t like it.’ And honestly, I understand, she’s right,” Rahmani explains. For him, the distance and the 14 years that separate them are a consequence of the “injustice” caused by the regime.

One of Rahmani’s most cherished memories is of a day when neither of them was in prison. “Our children were small. We were in Tehran, and it was drizzling lightly. I suggested we go into a restaurant for a meal, for the first time. She said, ‘No need, let’s just have some sandwiches right here.’ For that brief moment, there was less psychological pressure and less surveillance. There was peace… Although afterward, everything turned into a storm again,” he recounts.

That separation has also affected her relationship with her children. “It’s been almost 10 years since I last saw or hugged her. For most of my life, my parents have been in prison,” Kiana says.

“Growing up without my mother has been deeply painful,” adds her twin brother, Ali. Even so, he affirms that their bond has always been very strong. “Since I was about five years old, I understood that she was a ‘second woman,’ someone who fights for the right to life, dignity, and freedom,” he explains. They both share the presidency of the Narges Mohammadi Foundation, based in Paris. With their mother constantly threatened and imprisoned on several occasions, they joined their father in exile 10 years ago, when they were still children.

Mohammadi was first imprisoned while studying physics at Qazvin International University, where she began her activism. Since then, she has faced 10 trials and received 10 sentences of several years in prison. Of the most recent sentence, handed down in February following her arrest last December, she still has 18 years left to serve. She faces charges such as “assembly and conspiracy against national security” and “propaganda against the state.”

Kiana says that she, her brother, and her father do everything they can to keep her mother’s voice alive outside of Iran. Despite everything, including witnessing arrests firsthand, her memories of her mother are filled with love and warmth. “When she was with us, she was completely present. We laughed a lot and played together.”

“I tried, in Persian media and also internationally, to constantly highlight her unjust situation and her activities. Narges has one defining characteristic: she tries to be the voice of the voiceless.” For Rahmani, supporting Mohammadi is supporting all political prisoners “because she wants to be their voice,” he adds. He points out that the regime is taking advantage of the war situation to accelerate the execution of many political prisoners. “We are truly worried, because the regime’s resistance under these conditions could seriously endanger Narges’s life,” he warns.

From exile, Kiana sums up the family’s wish: “We hope to be reunited with our mother, to hug her again, for her to be able to visit us in Paris.” She adds that, in addition to the release of political prisoners, she hopes that other children will not have to endure what she has suffered for so many years: “That they will not be separated from their parents in this way.”

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