Iran’s Nobel winner says protests led to ‘profound changes’

MADRID: Nationwide protests against Iran´s religious authorities sparked by the death in 2022 of Mahsa Amini have led to “profound changes”, Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi said on Sunday.

A 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, Amini died in custody on September 16, 2022, days after the morality police arrested her in Tehran for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic´s strict dress code for women.

Her death triggered months-long protests nationwide under the rallying cray “Woman, life freedom!”, with hundreds of people, including dozens of security personnel, killed. Thousands of demonstrators were arrested.

“After these protests and the ´women, life and freedom movement´, we are seeing very profound changes in society,” Mohammadi said during a video interview with Spanish public television TVE from an undisclosed location in Iran. Mohammadi, 52, had been in prison for over three years but was released in December for a limited period on medical leave. Her legal team have warned she could be re-arrested and sent back to jail at any time.

She won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her two-decade fight for human rights in the Islamic republic and strongly backed the protests sparked by Amini´s death.

“Life in prison is practically impossible. I spent part of my sentence in solitary confinement, in a very small space, with three walls and a door, with nothing else,” said Mohammadi, who spoke in Farsi and was flanked by a picture of Amini.