- Laureate ended a week-long hunger strike on Sunday in protest against detention.
- She was arrested in December for denouncing the death of lawyer Khosrow Alikordi.
- Her sentence includes prison time, internal exile, a two-year travel ban.
Iranian activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, who has been jailed repeatedly in her three-decade campaign for women’s rights, was handed a new 7-1/2-year prison term, a group supporting her said on Sunday.
Mohammadi, 53, was on a week-long hunger strike that ended Sunday, the Narges Foundation said in a statement. It said Mohammadi told her lawyer, Mostafa Nili, in a phone call Sunday from prison that she had received her sentence on Saturday.
Iran’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tehran renewed a crackdown on dissent during nearly three weeks of anti-government protests that started in late December.
Mohammadi was arrested on December 12 after denouncing the suspicious death of lawyer Khosrow Alikordi. Prosecutor Hasan Hematifar told reporters that she made provocative remarks at Alikordi’s memorial ceremony in the northeastern city of Mashhad, urging those present “to chant defiant slogans” and “disrupt the peace”.
Mohammadi is being held in a detention center in Mashhad.
“After weeks of absolute isolation and a total breakdown of communication, she was finally able to describe her situation in a brief phone call with her lawyer,” the foundation said.
Her sentence includes six years in prison for assembly
and cooperation against national security and 1-1/2 years for propaganda against the government. She was also punished with two years of internal exile in the city of Khusf and a two-year ban on entry.
Mohammadi won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize while in prison for her campaign to promote women’s rights and abolish the death penalty in Iran.
