Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi was severely overwhelmed by jail guards and denied requests for hospital remedy and entry to a lawyer after main protests towards the demise penalty final week, his lawyer stated on Thursday.
His lawyer, Mostafa Nili, spoke to Iranian media concerning the violence towards Mohammadi and expressed concern for his well being and security, saying his cellmates had knowledgeable him of his scenario.
“My consumer says she was overwhelmed and has bruises on her physique,” the reformist Emtedad information company quoted Nili as saying. “Despite the jail physician’s directions and taking into consideration my consumer’s coronary heart situation, she has not been despatched to hospital,” he stated.
Mohammadi, 52, certainly one of Iran’s most distinguished human rights and ladies’s rights activists, is serving a 10-year sentence within the infamous Evin Prison for endangering nationwide safety by way of her human rights activism. She was awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize.
From the ladies’s ward of the jail, she has organized workshops, talks, protests and sit-ins towards the federal government’s human rights violations.
On August 6, Mohammadi and different feminine prisoners shouted slogans as they protested towards the deliberate execution of Reza Rasaei, 34, a Kurdish man who was arrested throughout protests in 2022 and accused of involvement within the killing of an Iranian safety officer. Rasaei denies the fees and human rights teams stated he was convicted in a “sham trial.”
Mohammadi’s Instagram web page additionally consists of audio from an earlier protest she and different prisoners held earlier that month towards the demise penalty, by which girls may be heard chanting “threats, repression and executions now not work” and “demise to the dictator.”
Mohammadi’s husband, Taghi Rahmani, and Nili stated the August 6 rally turned violent when Ministry of Intelligence brokers stationed on the jail tried to quell their chants and riot management jail officers raided their protest on the jail grounds. The girls had been severely overwhelmed, compelled into cells and locked there, in accordance with her husband.
Ten of the ladies collapsed and 5, together with Mohammadi, had been injured, Rahmani stated. Guards beat Mohammadi, placing her within the chest and inflicting her respiration issues so her cellmates thought she had gone into cardiac arrest, her husband stated. The girls had been handled on the jail infirmary, the place a health care provider ordered her to be taken to hospital, Rahmani and Nili stated.
In an interview from Paris, the place he lives in exile along with his 17-year-old twin son and daughter, Rahmani stated his spouse had knowledgeable him of what had occurred by way of his cellmate, who was allowed to name and go to the household.
“Watching all this from the surface and understanding the bodily and psychological stress Narges is underneath could be very worrying. She is now internationally well-known. The authorities are intentionally punishing her,” Rahmani stated.
Days after the incident, Iranian jail authorities launched a report denying that guards had bodily overwhelmed feminine inmates. A press release printed by the judiciary’s information company Mizan accused Mohammadi of “inciting feminine prisoners” to assault guards and break the lock on a door resulting in the courtyard.
The assertion claimed the ladies had been returned to their cells peacefully with none violence.
Mr Rasaei was certainly one of 29 prisoners executed over two days final week by Iran, largely convicted of drug trafficking and homicide, in accordance with the United Nations and rights teams.
“It is astonishing that so many executions have been carried out in such a brief time frame,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk stated in a press release final week. He stated the U.N. Human Rights Office had confirmed that 38 individuals had been executed in July, bringing the overall variety of executions this yr to a minimum of 345, together with 15 girls.
Hadi Ghaemi, director of the New York-based impartial Center for Human Rights in Iran, stated the Iranian authorities has lengthy used executions and the demise penalty as a way of intimidation, and that was no exception through the women-led rebellion in 2022, which was sparked by the demise of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody after she was arrested for allegedly violating hijab legal guidelines.
Ghaemi stated the current string of executions might be a message from the federal government that any unrest within the nation at such a delicate time will likely be met with an iron fist – and that, he stated, additionally utilized to Mohammadi.
Iran has been going through inner battle because the election of its new reformist President, Massoud Pezechkian, who introduced that his cupboard would come with just a few conservatives and one girl. The nation’s Vice President for Strategic Affairs, Mohammed Javad Zarif, resigned shortly after.
Tensions are rising within the area as the opportunity of struggle with Israel looms, with Iranian leaders vowing to retaliate towards Israel for the assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.