Iranian security forces on Friday detained Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi along with at least eight other activists in an arrest condemned as “brutal” by the Norwegian Nobel committee.
Mohammadi, who was granted temporary leave from prison in December last year, was detained along with eight other activists at the ceremony for lawyer Khosrow Alikordi, who was found dead in his office last week, her foundation wrote on X.
Those arrested at the ceremony in Mashhad included Mohammadi’s fellow prominent activist Sepideh Gholian, who had previously been jailed alongside her in Tehran’s Evin prison.
Photo: Narges Mohammadi Foundation, AFP
“These individuals were present solely to pay their respects and express solidarity at a memorial ceremony,” her foundation said, adding that the arrests “constitute a blatant and serious violation of fundamental freedoms and basic human rights.”
“Narges was beaten on the legs and she was held by her hair and dragged down,” said one of her brothers, Hamid Mohammadi.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it was “deeply concerned by today’s brutal arrest” of Mohammadi, calling on Iran to clarify her whereabouts.
The arrest came two days after the ceremony in Oslo for this year’s prize winner, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, a fierce critic of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who is an ally of Tehran.
The Nobel committee said it “notes” the timing “given the close collaboration between the regimes in Iran and Venezuela.”
Mehr News Agency cited Mashhad Governor Hassan Hosseini as saying the people were arrested at the ceremony after “chanting slogans deemed contrary to public norms,” but did not name them.
Alikordi, 45, was a lawyer who had defended clients in sensitive cases, including people arrested in a crackdown on nationwide protests that erupted in 2022.
His body was found on Friday last week, with rights groups calling for an investigation into his death, which Iran Human Rights said “had very serious suspicion of a state murder.”
The Human Rights Activists News Agency posted footage of Mohammadi, who was not wearing the headscarf women are obliged to wear in public in the Islamic republic, attending the ceremony with a crowd of other supporters of Alikordi.
It said they shouted slogans including “Long live Iran,” “We fight, we die, we accept no humiliation” and “Death to the dictator” at the ceremony which, in line with Islamic tradition, marked seven days since Alikordi’s death.
Other footage broadcast by Persian-language television channels based outside Iran showed Mohammadi climbing on top of a vehicle with a microphone and encouraging people to chant slogans.
“When peaceful citizens cannot mourn without being beaten and dragged away, it reveals a government terrified of truth and accountability. It also reveals the extraordinary bravery of Iranians who refuse to surrender their dignity,” Center for Human Rights in Iran executive director Hadi Ghaemi said.
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