Iran’s jailed Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi allowed to leave prison for 21 days after surgery

By Jomana Karadsheh, CNN

(CNN) — Iranian authorities have allowed Narges Mohammadi, the country’s most prominent human rights activist and 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner, to leave prison for 21 days to recover from surgery for suspected cancer, a decision her family has criticized as “too little, too late.”

An Iranian prosecutor on Tuesday suspended Mohammadi’s prison term for three weeks – instead of the three months requested by her family and lawyers – to allow her to recover from an operation she had in November to remove part of a bone in her lower right leg, where doctors had discovered a lesion suspected of being cancerous.

Mohammadi’s family told CNN that she has been left “unable to walk.” “She is in an ambulance on her way home,” the family said in a statement on Wednesday. The activist had to pay the ambulance fee, which was not subsidized by Iranian authorities.

“After over a decade of imprisonment, Narges required specialized medical care in a safe, sanitary environment – a basic human right,” the foundation said. “As doctors have emphasized, a minimum of three months’ recovery is crucial for her healing.”

The Narges Foundation, which is run by her family, criticized the ruling as giving her insufficient time to recover. It had previously requested she be released for at least three months.

Speaking to CNN after a news conference in Paris on Wednesday, Mohammadi’s son Ali said he spoke with his mother for the first time in two years. “It was intense, really, but very, very short,” he said.

“She told me that she will continue to fight without respite at all costs against the Islamic Republic of Iran, for a free Iran, equal between men and women, and also for the death penalty and gender apartheid to be recognized as a universal crime throughout the world, and especially in Iran,” said Ali.

“My mother has already reminded me of the most important things. The first thing (is) that when she left Evin prison, she left it without the obligatory veil and with only one word on her lips. A slogan (of the 2022 uprisings across Iran): ‘Woman, life, freedom,’” said Ali.

Ali added that Mohammadi’s fight “is also the fight of all her fellow prisoners, of all the people today who are fighting in Iran for democracy, and for freedom between men and women, against the death penalty.”

Mohammadi has spent most of the past two decades as an inmate of Tehran’s Evin prison – notorious for housing critics of the Iranian regime.

She is serving multiple sentences totaling more than 30 years, having been accused of acting against national security and spreading propaganda against the state.

CNN has reached out to Iranian officials for comment.

Supporters say she’s a political prisoner who was detained for trying to advance women’s rights and democracy in the country.

In 2023, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her “fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.”

In November, her family accused the Iranian regime of trying to bring about her “slow death” by depriving her of the surgery needed to confirm her cancer diagnosis.

Her family and lawyer had warned that any delay in treating her could prove fatal and had called for her to be granted “medical furlough” to cover both the suspected cancer treatment and a range of other health conditions she is grappling with.

According to her lawyer, a recent MRI revealed the progression of arthritis and disc disease while doctors have also called for a further angiography on one of her heart arteries after she suffered a heart attack in 2021.

However, her foundation noted that Tuesday’s ruling was a suspension of her sentence, rather than a furlough.

“Unlike a ‘medical furlough,’ which would have allowed the recovery period to count toward her prison term, this suspension means that upon her return, she will be required to serve an additional 30 days,” the foundation said.

“Weeks of enduring excruciating pain in prison, despite tireless advocacy from fellow inmates, human rights organizations, and international figures, highlights the persistent disregard for Narges Mohammadi’s basic human rights and the inhumane treatment she endures,” the foundation added.

While in prison, Mohammadi has continued to campaign for human rights causes, lobbying for the rights of Iranian women and calling for a peaceful resolution to the war in Gaza.

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is among the high-profile figures to have recently called for her release.

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