Nobel laureate transferred to northern Iran prison: family

Mohammadi received the Peace Prize in 2023 in recognition of his more than two decades of campaigning. He was arrested in the eastern city of Mashhad on December 12 after making remarks against Iran’s religious authorities at a funeral.

She went on a hunger strike earlier this month and was hospitalized before being returned to prison.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said this week it was “deeply alarmed” by reports that Mohammadi suffered “physical abuse and ongoing life-threatening ill-treatment” during his arrest and detention.

After his arrest, Mohammadi was held in the detention center of the Intelligence Ministry in Mashhad.

But her Paris-based husband Taghi Rahmani said she had now been transferred to a prison in the city of Zanjan in the north of the country.

“This action was carried out without informing her family or lawyers,” he said on

The Mohammadi Foundation, run by her supporters and family, said she had been transferred on Tuesday but did not reveal the news until Saturday during a phone call with Iranian lawyer Mostafa Nili.

Since her arrest in December, she has only been allowed one phone call with a brother in Iran, and now only two phone calls with her Iranian lawyer.

“During our brief conversation, she discussed the violence she suffered during her arrest, the stress of her interrogation, and the particularly severe blows she received to the head,” Neely wrote in a post on X.

“The blows caused her dizziness, double vision and blurred vision. Her body also bore bruises and signs of severe physical assault,” he added.

Mohammadi was arrested later in December before protests erupted across the country. The movement peaked in January when authorities launched a crackdown that activists say has killed thousands.

Earlier this month, she was sentenced to six years in prison for endangering national security and a year and a half for promoting propaganda against Iran’s Islamic system. She also went on a hunger strike for nearly a week to protest the conditions of her detention.

Mohammadi, 53, has been tried and imprisoned several times over the past quarter-century for opposing Iran’s use of the death penalty and mandatory dress code for women.

Mohammadi was born in Zanjan but lives in Tehran. Her foundation said she had been transferred twice to Zanjan prison during previous incarcerations, where she was abused.

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