Iran slaps one-year prison term on Nobel winner Mohammadi – lawyer

An Iranian court has sentenced Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi to a year in prison for “propaganda against the state”, the jailed activist’s lawyer said on Tuesday.

Mohammadi, 52, has been jailed since November 2021 over several past convictions relating to her advocacy against the obligatory hijab for women and capital punishment in Iran.

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Lawyer Mostafa Nili said on social media platform X that “Mohammadi was sentenced to one year in prison for propaganda against the system.”

Nili said “the reasons for issuing this sentence” include calls to boycott parliamentary elections, letters to Swedish and Norwegian lawmakers and “comments about Mrs Dina Ghalibaf”.

Rights groups have said that Ghalibaf, a journalist and student, had been taken into custody after accusing security forces on social media of putting her in handcuffs and sexually assaulting her during a previous arrest at a metro station.

Ghalibaf has since been released.

The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan Online website said on April 22 that Ghalibaf “had not been raped” and that she was being prosecuted for making a “false statement”.

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Mohammadi has refused to attend a trial session in Tehran earlier this month, and in March shared an audio message from prison in which she decried a “full-scale war against women” in the Islamic republic.

Iranian police in recent months have intensified enforcement of the country’s Islamic dress code for women, notably making use of video surveillance.

Under rules adopted shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, women in Iran are required to cover their hair and dress modestly in public spaces.

© Agence France-Presse