A new trial against Iranian Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi was opened on 9 June in the Revolutionary Court of Tehran, accused in her absence of “spreading lies” and “propaganda against the state”. Several similar cases have been held against Mohammadi, who campaigns against the death penalty, the regime’s systematic use of torture, and sexualised violence in Iranian prisons. She has been imprisoned since 2021 serving a 10-year prison term and sentenced to 154 lashes.
The court, in the new indictment, accuses the human rights activist of “baseless charges”, the Mohammadi Foundation said, due to her testimony exposing sexual harassment in the prison system, specifically an assault against journalist student Dina Ghalibaf, and a call to boycott the parliamentary elections held in March.
Her lawyer, Mostafa Nili, defended his client in her absence.
Mohammadi issued a statement last year on the eve of the Islamic Council and Assembly of Experts elections, urging the public to boycott the vote. In her declaration, she announced that the Islamic Republic “deserves national sanctions and global humiliation”.
Continuing her campaign to eliminate discrimination against women, Mohammadi last week launched an initiative to raise awareness on sexual assault and harassment. She emphasised the importance of listening to women’s narratives, supporting victims, and prosecuting offenders. She urged activists to join the campaign and end government-sanctioned sexual harassment of protesters.
Following the campaign’s launch, human rights activists voiced their support, protesting the criminalisation of Mohammadi’s accounts of sexual harassment in the Islamic regime’s prisons.
Gender and human rights activists highlighted solidarity with women jailed at Tehran’s Evin Prison. They called for continued efforts to document sexual abuse cases of woman prisoners from the 1980s to the present.
Sadiqa Wasmaghi, an Iranian writer and scholar recently released from prison for opposing the mandatory hijab, urged Iranian authorities to prosecute the officers who raped the women instead of targeting Narges Mohammadi.
Mohammadi, a vocal critic of the Iranian regime, was awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize on 14 October. Over the years, she has been arrested, tried and imprisoned on various charges due to her human rights activities. She stands as a representative of the international ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadî’ (Woman, Life, Freedom) movement that sprang up in response to the brutal police killing of a young Kurdish woman, Jîna Mahsa Amini in Iran in 2022.
