Iranian Mohammadi to stage new hunger strike as Nobel peace prize is awarded

By AFP
December 10, 2023

OSLO: Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi will go on a new hunger strike from her prison cell in Iran as the prize is awarded in Oslo on Sunday in her absence, her family said Saturday.

Mohammadi, who has campaigned against the compulsory wearing of the hijab and the death penalty in Iran, will go on hunger strike “in solidarity” with the Baha’i religious minority, her brother and husband told a press conference in the Norwegian capital on the eve of the Nobel award ceremony.

The Head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Berit Reiss-Andersen (R) gives a press conference with the husband and children of this years winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi (not in picture), with (from L) her husband Taghi Rahmani and their children Ali and Kiana, at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway, on December 9, 2023. — AFP
The Head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Berit Reiss-Andersen (R) gives a press conference with the husband and children of this year's winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi (not in picture), with (from L) her husband Taghi Rahmani and their children Ali and Kiana, at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway, on December 9, 2023. — AFP 

The 51-year-old activist’s husband, Taghi Rahmani, went on to explain that the strike was a gesture of solidarity with the Baha’i religious minority, two of whose jailed leading figures, Mahvash Sabet and Fariba Kamalabadi, have started refusing food.

“She said that ‘I will start my hunger strike on the day that I am being granted this prize, perhaps then the world will hear more about it’,” he explained. Iran’s largest religious minority, the Baha’i community is the target of discrimination in many areas of society, according to its representatives.

Mohammadi already went on a hunger strike for several days at the beginning of November to obtain the right to be transferred to hospital without covering her head.

Detained since 2021 in Tehran’s Evin prison, Mohammadi will be represented at the Oslo ceremony by her 17-year-old twin children, Ali and Kiana.