Iran has released the Nobel peace laureate Narges Mohammadi, jailed since November 2021, for three weeks on medical grounds, her lawyer posted on social media.
“Based on the advice of the examining doctor, the public prosecutor suspended the jail sentence against Narges Mohammadi for three weeks and she was released from prison,” Mostafa Nili said on X.
Mohammadi walked out of Tehran’s Evin prison on Wednesday morning chanting the protest slogan ‘Woman Life Freedom,’ her husband said.
“She came out in a good state of mind, a combative state despite her very fragile state of health,” Taghi Rahmani told reporters.
Family and supporters of the 2023 Nobel winner called her temporary release “inadequate”.
“A 21-day suspension of Narges Mohammadi’s sentence is inadequate. We demand Narges Mohammadi’s immediate and unconditional release or at least an extension of her leave to three months,” they said in a statement, describing the measure as “too little, too late”.
Mohammadi has been imprisoned since November 2021 for convictions in relation to her campaigning against capital punishment and the obligatory hijab in Iran.
Weeks after the 2023 peace prize ceremony in Oslo, where Mohammadi’s children collected the prize on her behalf, a revolutionary court in Iran sentenced her to an additional 15 months, accusing of spreading propaganda against the state while in prison.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee joined calls for her to be permanently freed. “We demand, as we have done before, that she is not only released from prison for 21 days for medical treatment, but released forever,” the head of the Nobel committee, Jorgen Watne Frydnes, told AFP.
“It’s our hope that the regime and the pressure from the outside world, including the Norwegian Nobel Committee, will result in her release one day,” Frydnes said.
He said “her condition is severe, most likely cancer.”
“The issue is, of course, that these 21 days are most likely not enough for adequate treatment,” he added.
Despite the repercussions, Mohammadi, a leading figure of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, has remained dedicated to her activism.
When her father died earlier this year, she was not allowed to offer condolences to her family in Iran or attend his funeral.
