Narges Mohammadi, holding a photograph of Mahsa Amini, at home after her release from Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran


Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Narges Mohammadi has been given temporary medical leave from prison in Iran.

Mohammadi, the Vice President of the Center for Defenders of Human Rights, has been recurrently arrested by the Iranian regime since the mass protests after the disputed 2009 Presidential election. She was imprisoned again in November 2021, with sentences total of 13 years and 9 months.

Her lawyer Mustafa Nili posted, “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.”

Mohammadi, awarded the Nobel Prize in 2023, walked out of Tehran’s Evin prison on Wednesday morning chanting “Woman, Life Freedom”, the slogan of nationwide protests from September 2022.

Her husband Taghi Rahmani said, “She came out in a good state of mind, a combative state despite her very fragile state of health.”

However, Mohammadi’s family and colleagues said the temporary release was “inadequate” and “too little, too late”: “We demand Narges Mohammadi’s immediate and unconditional release or at least an extension of her leave to three months.”

The head of the Nobel Committee, Jorgen Watne Frydnes, noted that the activist’s “condition is severe, most likely cancer”.

We demand, as we have done before, that she is not only released from prison for 21 days for medical treatment, but released forever..

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.

Weeks after the Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, a Revolutionary Court in Tehran sentenced the laureate to an additional 15 months. She was punished for her opposition to the death penalty, accused of spreading propaganda against the state.

Mohammadi recently had part of a bone in her right leg removed over fears of cancer. She was immediately returned to prison.

Rapper Salehi Freed

Rapper and activist Toomaj Salehi has been released after more than two years in prison and the threat of a death sentence.

Salehi was arrested in October 2022, weeks after the start of the nationwide protests sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, detained and reportedly beaten over “inappropriate attire”.

He was condemned for lyrics such as “Someone’s crime was dancing with her hair in the wind. Someone’s crime was that he or she was brave and criticized….44 years of your government. It’s the year of failure.”

An initial sentence of 6 years and 3 months was raised to the death penalty in April 2024, but an appeals court lifted the threat of execution two months later.

Salehi thanked supporters in a post on Instagram, “For the past two years, you have done for me unpredictable, magnificent and unbelievable things, I am a part of you today.”

Caoilfhionn Gallagher, international legal counsel for Salehi’s family, said in a statement.

Mr. Salehi has long used his powerful art — his rapping, his music, his words — to support the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement and human rights in Iran. For this, the Iranian authorities have targeted him for years, attempting to silence him through arrests, imprisonment, torture, assaults, and even a death sentence.


The world must not look away now: we must ensure Mr Salehi remains free and is never again subjected to the egregious violations of his rights which he has endured over the past 753 days.