Narges Mohammadi: Two Shackles and a Golden Medal

January 7th 2024

Once a year the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to a person or organization who or which the Norwegian Nobel Committee deems has demonstrated outstanding achievements in the pursuit of peace and justice for all of humanity.  The Nobel Peace Prize laureate of the year 2023 is the Iranian women rights activist Narges Mohammadi. She received the award due to her unsurmountable effort to fight for human rights and human dignity for all in her home country of Iran, despite having to face the dire consequences of her activism.

Undoubtedly her activism has reached a dimension of global recognition, due to it being interwoven with the underlying call for freedom, justice and human rights situated at the hearts of the millions of Iranians breathing life into the Women, Life, Freedom Revolution in Iran since the 16th of September 2022. Narges Mohammadi’s activism ignited during her days at university and proceeds the spark of the full-scale mass protests of our time. While studying physics and working later on as an engineer, she simultaneously started publishing articles revolving around the topics of equality, dignity and women’s rights from a young age. Since 2003 she has been an active member of the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran together with renowned human rights activist and lawyer Shirin Ebadi. 

During the time span of her birth to the day of her winning the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize Narges Mohammadi was arrested twelve times. On the grounds of multiple charges including endangering the national security and plotting against the Islamic Republic of Iran, she has been sentenced to a total of 30 years of prison. As of now, she is currently undergoing her sentence in Evin Prison in Teheran, a facility that houses political prisoners advocating for a more democratic and free Iran. It is also home to the most systemic human rights abuses in the country such as physical and mental torture, disastrous hygienic conditions enabling diseases to ravage the bodies of the inmates, a lack of nutrition, clean water, electricity and human interaction. Forced confessions, overflowing lavatories and a lack of legal representation are what rule the daily life within Evin. The thick concrete walls of the prison are so adept at isolating the inmates from the outside world that Narges Mohamadi herself was completely unaware that she had been selected as this year’s recipient until a few days after the official announcement whilst being permitted to speak with her relatives on the phone, which she is only allowed to do once a week on Fridays.

Nevertheless, even in prison Narges Mohammadi has not been any less deterred from advocating for free and equal human rights in Iran. Time and time again she has managed to smuggle out handwritten texts from inside her cell to the outside world. Noted down toilet paper and coffee filters she has been relentless in telling the world about the conditions she and the other inmates in Evin are exposed to on a daily basis. Her communication with the outside world also serves to showcase her unwavering spirit in fighting for a more just life with the means she and the other political prisoners have to their disposal: sit-ins and hunger strikes.

In December of 2022 she published the book “White Torture: Interviews with Iranian Women Prisoners”, which is a collection of interviews she herself conducted from within prison with women who, like herself, had faced the horrendous conditions of solitary confinement. Narges Mohammadi herself has been sentenced to solitary confinement four times throughout the entirety of her life. Although at times it may seem like it, Narges Mohammadi is not a morally infallible and mentally indestructible superwoman. The repercussions of her activism have left deep marks on her mind and body. She has suffered a heart attack during her time in Quarchak Prison in addition to having developed a neurological condition which affects her ability to control the muscles in her body.  Furthermore, she yearns for a normal life with her husband and two children Ali and Kiana, who received the Nobel Peace Price on her behalf in Oslo while she herself was confined to the cold walls of her prison cell in Teheran.

In her own words her persistence and fighting spirit are born and reborn from the love she holds for her country and the people that live within it. Her work as a human rights activist is driven by the possibility of seeing life in Iran flourish within democratic and free institutions – free of injustice and impunity. It is ultimately this passion and love, unable to be restricted to the cell she sleeps, breathes and lives in, that made the world recognize not only her power, but the power held by all those Iranian women risking their lives by fighting for a more just future.