CNN —
Imprisoned Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi started a starvation strike on Monday to protest the jail’s denial of medical therapy, in response to a household assertion offered to CNN.
The 51-year-old human rights activist was awarded the Nobel Prize on October 6 for her “battle in opposition to the oppression of girls in Iran and the battle to advertise human rights and freedoms for all.” This battle took an enormous private toll. She was sentenced to greater than 30 years in jail and was banned from seeing her husband and kids.
Iranian prosecutors have refused to grant Mohammadi’s request to be transferred from Iran’s infamous Evin jail, the place he’s being held, to a coronary heart and lung hospital for “pressing therapy,” in response to his household.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported that she was refused therapy at a hospital final week as a result of she refused to put on the obligatory hijab.
“It has been per week since they denied her the medical help she wanted,” the activist’s household stated in an announcement, including that they have been “involved” for her “situation and well being.”
The household added that Muhammadi was utilizing the starvation strike to reveal in opposition to Iran’s “coverage of delaying and ignoring medical take care of sick prisoners” and the coverage of requiring Iranian ladies to put on the hijab.
Norway’s Nobel Committee stated on Monday it was “deeply involved” about Mohammadi’s well being.
“The requirement that feminine prisoners put on a hijab when admitted to hospital is inhumane and morally unacceptable,” Berit Ries Andersen, chair of the fee, stated in an announcement. Stated.
In a letter written from Tehran’s Evin Prison and shared with CNN earlier this 12 months, Muhammadi slammed the federal government’s coverage of obligatory hijab, calling it a “misleading plan in opposition to ladies” and “the ability of a spiritual authorities.” He referred to as it a way to strengthen the
When the Islamic Republic got here to energy 40 years in the past, it mandated the sporting of the hijab as a way of controlling society “to flaunt a picture of domination, subjugation and domination over ladies,” Muhammadi wrote.
In an audio recording shared with CNN from inside Evin jail, Mohammadi could be heard main chants of “ladies, life, freedom,” the slogan of the rebellion sparked by Mahsa Amini’s loss of life final 12 months. ing. A 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian girl died within the custody of the regime’s morality police after being arrested on suspicion of not following the nation’s conservative costume code.
Another younger girl, 16-year-old Armita Gheravand, was left in a coma final month after being assaulted by the nation’s morality police for not sporting a headband in Tehran’s metro. Ms Gheravand’s loss of life was introduced by Iranian state media on October 28, a month after Iran’s parliament handed a troublesome invoice imposing penalties of as much as 10 years in jail for girls who violate the nation’s already strict hijab guidelines. Ta.
Courtesy of Narjes Mohammadi
Narges Mohammadi and her youngsters Kiana and Ali.
Muhammadi himself has spent a lot of the previous 20 years in jail, presently serving a 10-year, nine-month sentence for acts in opposition to nationwide safety and propaganda in opposition to the state.
In August, she was sentenced to an extra 12 months in jail for persevering with her actions in jail after giving media interviews and making statements about sexual assault in jail. Sexual assaults have “considerably elevated” since protests swept throughout Iran final 12 months, she stated. She described the abuse as now “systematic”.
In a letter to CNN, Mohammadi outlined how the assaults happen “in custody, throughout interrogation, underneath risk…in detention automobiles, underneath punches and kicks from law enforcement officials.” She argued that that is the hypocrisy of a spiritual state that exploits sexual violence. in opposition to feminine detainees.
The Iranian authorities has denied widespread allegations of sexual assault in opposition to detainees, together with a radical investigation by CNN final 12 months, as “false” and “baseless.”
Mohammadi is already in jail for publishing a e book final 12 months about Iran’s brutal jail strategies titled “White Torture: Interviews with Iranian Female Prisoners” and a documentary movie that tells the tales of prisoners in solitary confinement. This was the punishment Mohammadi himself acquired. he endured.
Mohammadi has been barred from talking on to her husband and kids for greater than a 12 months as a result of she refused to stay silent in jail.
CNN not too long ago interviewed Mohammadi’s husband and son, who’re residing in exile in France, and expressed pleasure in her “boundless power for freedom and human rights” in Iran.
The household vowed to carry the Iranian regime accountable “for no matter occurs to our beloved Narges.”