Narges Mohammadi Says Iranians Bear the Cost of War and Repression

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has said that Iranians are bearing an "extremely heavy price" as war, economic hardship and internal repression leave them with "no room to breathe," in an interview conducted from outside the country.

Mohammadi, 54, who won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, was temporarily released from prison earlier this year on medical grounds after she lost consciousness and was taken to hospital. She said she is now recovering.

She described being severely beaten by security forces when she was detained in December in the northeastern city of Mashhad, where she had been attending a memorial for human rights lawyer Khosrow Alikordi and was arrested while giving a public speech. She was later sentenced to 16 years in prison and more than 100 lashes. She said the sentence has not been carried out, but that she spent long periods in solitary confinement, including two months while in poor health.

"My detention was really life-threatening," she said, adding that most of the blows had struck her head. She was released on bail about ten days after losing consciousness on May 1 and moved to a hospital in Tehran, where she stayed for a further two weeks.

Her memoir, written behind bars, is being released this month in French, German and nine other languages, with English and Farsi editions planned for next year. Mohammadi began writing it in 2019 during an earlier spell in Tehran's Evin prison, but lost her handwritten notes when she was moved. This time, she said, fellow inmates helped smuggle out a few pages at a time. "If it weren't for them, I couldn't have done it," she said.

She traced much of the current mood in Iran to the 2022 protests that followed the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old detained over the country's strict dress code. Mohammadi said that although repression has intensified, a younger generation "knows its rights" and is standing firm. "If you go out into the streets, you see a wave of resistance among the people," she said, calling it a source of hope.

Mohammadi also recalled the fear and repression of her childhood during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, which she said left her with a hatred of war. She spoke of her alarm on learning that Evin prison had been bombed during the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran in 2025, a period when she was out of prison. "At that moment, I felt that, in this country, we are at the intersection of injustice, discrimination, war, authoritarianism," she said.

She has received sentences totaling 44 years and has already served 10 years in prison, including 161 days in solitary confinement. Barred from travelling abroad since 2009, she remains separated from her husband and two children, who live in exile in France. Her sentence is currently suspended, and she said she must return whenever the judiciary orders it.