Iranian Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi sentenced to seven more years in jail

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammad has been jailed (Narges Foundation Archive via AP, File)

Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has been sentenced to seven more years in prison after she began a hunger strike, supporters said.

The new convictions against Ms Mohammadi come as Iran tries to negotiate with the United States over its nuclear programme to avert a military strike threatened by President Donald Trump.

Iran’s top diplomat insisted on Sunday that Tehran’s strength came from its ability to “say no to the great powers”, days after negotiations in Oman with the US.

Ms Mohammadi’s lawyer Mostafa Nili confirmed the sentence on X, saying it had been handed down on Saturday by a Revolutionary Court in the city of Mashhad.

Mostafa Nili, the lawyer of Narges Mohammadi, stated in a tweet today: Based on the verdict issued by Branch 29 of the Revolutionary Court, #NargesMohammadi has been sentenced to one more year in prison for propaganda activities against the regime. https://t.co/HHC8vnPjj6

— Narges Mohammadi | نرگس محمدی (@nargesfnd) June 18, 2024

“She has been sentenced to six years in prison for ‘gathering and collusion’ and one and a half years for propaganda and two-year travel ban,” he wrote.

She received another two years of internal exile to the city of Khosf, some 460 miles south east of Tehran, the capital, the lawyer added.

Iran did not immediately acknowledge the sentence. Supporters say Ms Mohammadi has been on a hunger strike since February 2.

She had been arrested in December at a ceremony honouring Khosrow Alikordi, a 46-year-old Iranian lawyer and human rights advocate who had been based in Mashhad. Footage from the demonstration showed her shouting, demanding justice for Mr Alikordi and others.

Supporters had warned for months before her December arrest that Ms Mohammadi, 53, was at risk of being put back into prison after she received a furlough in December 2024 over medical concerns.

While that was to be only three weeks, Ms Mohammadi’s time out of prison lengthened, possibly as activists and Western powers pushed Iran to keep her free. She remained out even during the 12-day war in June between Iran and Israel.

She kept up her activism with public protests and international media appearances, including even demonstrating at one point in front of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, where she had been held.

She had been serving 13 years and nine months on charges of collusion against state security and propaganda against Iran’s government. She also had backed the nationwide protests sparked by the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, which have seen women openly defy the government by not wearing the hijab.

Ms Mohammadi suffered multiple heart attacks while imprisoned before undergoing emergency surgery in 2022, her supporters say. Her lawyer in late 2024 revealed doctors had found a bone lesion that they feared could be cancerous that later was removed.

However, Iranian officials have been signalling a harder line against all dissent since the demonstrations.

The news about Ms Mohammadi came as Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to diplomats at a summit in Tehran, signalled that Iran would stick to its position that it must be able to enrich uranium — a major point of contention with Mr Trump, who bombed Iranian atomic sites in June during the 12-day Iran-Israel war.