Mohammadi to go on starvation strike ‘in solidarity’ with Iran’s Baha’i non secular minority as her prize is awarded in Norway.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, at present jailed in Iran for her activism for girls’s rights, will start a brand new starvation strike in jail as her prize is awarded in Norway, says her household.
At a information convention on Saturday in Oslo, Mohammadi’s husband Taghi Rahmani, their twin youngsters, Ali and Kiana Rahmani, and her brother who’re representing the veteran rights activist on the awards ceremony on Sunday, mentioned the brand new strike is to point out solidarity in the direction of the Baha’i non secular minority in Iran.
“She isn’t right here with us right now, she is in jail and he or she will probably be on a starvation strike in solidarity with a spiritual minority however we really feel her presence right here,” her youthful brother, Hamidreza Mohammadi, mentioned in a short opening assertion.
Mohammadi, 51, was awarded the Nobel prize in October “for her combat in opposition to the oppression of ladies in Iran”. She is nineteenth girl to win the 11 million Swedish kronor (about $1m) prize, and the fifth particular person to win it whereas in detention.
“On Worldwide Human Rights Day, tenth of December, I may also go on a starvation strike in protest in opposition to violations of human rights in Iran and in solidarity with the starvation strike of Baha’i ladies prisoners in Evin Jail,” mentioned a publish on Mohammadi’s Instagram account.
Mohammadi is at present held in Evin jail in Tehran, the place she went another hunger strike final month to protest limits on medical look after her and different inmates, in addition to the duty for girls to put on the hijab in Iran, based on her household.
In a letter smuggled out from jail and revealed on Monday by Swedish public broadcaster SVT, Mohammadi mentioned she would proceed the strike even when it led to her dying.
“Imprisonment, psychological torture, fixed solitary confinement, sentence after sentence; that hasn’t and isn’t going to cease me,” she wrote, based on SVT.
“I’m going to face up for freedom and equality even when it prices me my life,” she mentioned, and added that she missed her youngsters probably the most.
In a powerful assertion of help for Mohammadi, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, mentioned the physique was “deeply involved” concerning the 2023 laureate’s well being.
First arrested 22 years in the past, Mohammadi has spent a lot of the previous 20 years out and in of jail over her campaigning for human rights in Iran. She has most just lately been incarcerated since November 2021 and has not seen her youngsters, now primarily based in France, for eight years.
On the information convention in Oslo, Kiana, who final noticed her mom eight years in the past, mentioned, “In relation to seeing her once more, personally I’m very pessimistic.”
“Perhaps I’ll see her in 30 or 40 years, however I believe I received’t see her once more,” she informed a information convention through a translator. “However that doesn’t matter as a result of my mom will all the time dwell on in my coronary heart and with my household.”
Mohammadi’s Nobel Prize got here within the wake of months-long protests throughout Iran triggered by the September 2022 dying in custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, who was arrested for allegedly flouting Iran’s strict costume guidelines for girls.
Each Ali and Kiana will obtain Mohammadi’s diploma and gold medal at Oslo’s Metropolis Corridor and provides the Nobel Prize lecture on behalf of their mom on Sunday.