Ailing Iranian Nobel laureate given bail and hospital transfer

Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi has been transferred from jail to a Tehran hospital amid concern over her deteriorating health.

Iranian authorities granted the human rights activist "a sentence suspension on heavy bail", a foundation run by her family said on Sunday.

Her brother, Hamidreza, told the BBC that he was relieved she would now receive adequate treatment from her own medical team. But he cautioned that the seriousness of her condition was not yet clear.

Last week, Mohammadi's family and supporters warned she could die in prison after suffering two suspected heart attacks earlier this year.

The 54-year-old, who is vice-president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran, was awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize for her activism against female oppression in Iran and promoting human rights.

After pleas from her family for her to be transferred from prison, Mohammadi was "now at Tehran Pars Hospital to be treated by her own medical team", ​the Narges Mohammadi Foundation said in a statement on Sunday evening.

She had spent 10 days at a hospital in Zanjan, about 265km (165 miles) north-west of the capital, where she was serving her sentence.

"Narges Mohammadi's life hangs in the balance," her Paris-based husband, Taghi Rahmani, said in a statement.

"While she is currently hospitalised following a catastrophic health failure, a temporary transfer is not enough. Narges must never be returned to the conditions that broke her health," he added.

Hamidreza Mohammadi, her Oslo-based brother, told the BBC that the bail provided "temporary relief from the certain death that Narges faced in the prison".

"It's very early stages, so we don't have any precise news about what's going on. But we trust the doctors that have treated her before. The only worry that I have is the permanent damage that has been caused during these days in the prison," he said.

"She has been experiencing very serious symptoms that point in the direction of having developed variant angina," he added, referring to a heart condition that happens when a coronary artery supplying blood and oxygen to your heart goes into spasm and suddenly narrows. "It might have some life-long repercussions for her health."

The activist is believed to have lost about 20kg (three stone) while in prison, and has difficulty speaking and is barely recognisable, according to her lawyer Chirinne Ardakani, who posted a photo of her sitting up in a hospital bed.

Mohammadi has spent more than a decade of her life in prison. In 2021, she began serving a 13-year sentence on charges of committing "propaganda activity against the state" and "collusion against state security", which she denied.

In December 2024, she was given a temporary release from Tehran's notorious Evin prison on medical grounds.

Mohammadi was arrested last December for making "provocative remarks" at a memorial ceremony, Iranian authorities said at the time. Her family said she was taken to hospital after being beaten during the arrest.

A few weeks later, protests against Iran's clerical establishment swept across the country. Thousands of protesters were killed and tens of thousands arrested in an unprecedented crackdown by security forces on the unrest, according to human rights activists.

In early February, Mohammadi was sentenced by a Revolutionary Court to an additional seven-and-a-half years in prison after being convicted of "gathering and collusion" and "propaganda activities", her lawyer said.

Last month, Hamidreza Mohammadi said his sister had been found unconscious by fellow inmates at Zanjan prison after suffering a suspected heart attack.

The foundation's statement on Sunday said "a suspension is not enough" and that the human rights activist requires "permanent, specialised care".

"We must ensure she never returns to prison to face the 18 years remaining on her sentence," it read.

"Now is the time to demand her unconditional freedom and the dismissal of all charges. No human and women's rights activists should ever be imprisoned for their peaceful work."

Hamidreza Mohammadi warned that his sister's physical condition was so fragile that any return to prison "would again cause severe problems for her and eventually her death".