Iran Releases Narges Mohammadi, Nobel Laureate, From Prison for 21 Days

The activist, whose health has deteriorated, had bone surgery last month. She was just 19 when Iran’s morality police detained her.

By Lynsey Chutel and Farnaz Fassihi

Prosecutors in Iran have agreed to allow Narges Mohammadi, the jailed activist and Nobel laureate, to leave prison for 21 days to recover from surgery, her foundation said on Wednesday.

For weeks, Ms. Mohammadi’s lawyers have petitioned for her to be given the necessary recovery time and medical attention after an operation on her leg to remove a lesion that was suspected of being cancerous. The Narges Foundation is urging, based on doctors’ recommendations, that she be given at least three months outside prison, where they say overcrowding and unsanitary conditions are endangering her recovery.

“A 21-day suspension of Narges Mohammadi’s sentence is inadequate,” the foundation said in a statement. “After over a decade of imprisonment, Narges requires specialized medical care in a safe, sanitary environment — a basic human right.”

Ms. Mohammadi, 52, is serving a sentence in a Tehran prison after being convicted of “spreading anti-state propaganda” for her criticism of Iran’s government and its laws curtailing women’s rights. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023.

Her health has suffered during her incarceration, including multiple heart attacks in 2022, the foundation said. Ms. Mohammadi’s husband, Taghi Rahmani, who lives in France with the couple’s two children, said in October that the Iranian government had withheld medical treatment for her for months.

“She has a problem with her digestive system, and lumps were found in her breasts,” he told The New York Times in a telephone interview. “But she was taken to the hospital five months later than the time of her initial request.”

She had also been denied any visitors and phone calls, Mr. Rahmani added.

Mr. Rahmani, reached by phone on Wednesday, said that he and their twin children were elated by the news of Ms. Mohammadi’s release, but their demand was that she be freed for good. He said their children had spoken to their mother for the first time in nearly three years, and that it was a very emotional conversation.

“I spoke to her briefly; she is in great spirits but she needs to stay out of prison to receive adequate medical care,” Mr. Rahmani said. “We are happy, but 21 days is not enough; she must be released permanently.”

A video showed Ms. Mohammadi arriving home on Wednesday in an ambulance on a stretcher, with her leg in a cast and, in defiance of the hijab law, wearing a sleeveless floral dress with her hair uncovered. She shouts: “Hello, freedom! Freedom is our right. Long live freedom,” and the motto of the women’s uprising, “Women, life, freedom!”

When Ms. Mohammadi returns to prison, her sentence will be extended 21 days to account for her absence, according to her foundation. It and her family had lobbied for a “medical furlough,” which would have counted toward her prison term.

An activist for three decades, Ms. Mohammadi was just 19 when Iran’s morality police detained her for wearing an orange coat, she wrote in her acceptance speech for the Peace Prize. Her children accepted the prize on her behalf while Ms Mohammadi was held in Tehran’s Evin prison.

She has been arrested 13 times and convicted five times, with additional cases opened against her while she was in prison. Even from prison, Ms. Mohammadi was a key figure in the mobilization of the 2022 antigovernment protests that swept through Iranian cities. She encouraged civil disobedience during the movement, which became one of the country’s largest-ever uprisings, led by women and girls demanding an end to the Islamic Republic’s clerical rule.

Ms. Mohammadi has also led weekly workshops for the women in prison with her.

As her health deteriorated last month, two of her fellow prisoners — Motahareh Goonei, a student activist; and Vida Rabbani, a journalist — went on hunger strike to protest what they said was a denial of care for Ms. Mohammadi.

Ms. Rabbani wrote a letter from prison to alert activists and lobby groups about Ms. Mohammadi’s worsening health, describing how the authorities had neglected her surgical wounds, according to news media reports.

Six days ago, on her twin children’s 18th birthday, Ms. Mohammadi issued a statement from prison addressed to them.

“My dear Ali and Kiana, we stand with the people and we are from the people,” she wrote. “Oppression, this shameful phenomena, is detrimental for life and humans, and we live under the hardest oppression of all, a religious authoritarianism.”

The Nobel Committee urged the Iranian authorities to “permanently end” Ms. Mohammadi’s imprisonment and ensure that she receives the proper medical treatment.

Lynsey Chutel is a Times reporter based in London who covers breaking news in Africa, the Middle East and Europe. More about Lynsey Chutel

Farnaz Fassihi is the United Nations bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the organization, and also covers Iran and the shadow war between Iran and Israel. She is based in New York. More about Farnaz Fassihi