The international community has reacted with outrage after Narges Mohammadi, the ailing Iranian human rights activist already serving a six-year jail term, was given a further 16-year sentence by a court in Tehran.
Mohammadi, 44, was found guilty of “establishing and running the illegal splinter group Legam”, a human rights movement that campaigns for the abolition of the death penalty.
Mohammadi was arrested last May, despite concerns about her deteriorating health, to serve the remainder of a six-year sentence dating back to September 2011.
Writing from prison, Mohammadi said in a letter written to Pen International that she was in a section with 25 other female political prisoners, of whom 23 have been sentenced to a total of 177 years.
“We are all charged due to our political and religious tendency,” she wrote. “The reason to write these lines is to tell you that the pain and suffering in the Evin prison is beyond tolerance. Opposite other prisons in Iran, there is no access to telephone in Evin prison. Except for a weekly visit, we have no contact to the outside. All visits take place behind double glass and only connected through a phone. We are allowed to have a visit from our family members only once a month.”
The UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, condemned Mohammadi’s treatment.
“We are appalled by the sentencing of a prominent Iranian anti-death penalty campaigner, Narges Mohammadi, to 16 years’ imprisonment in charges that stem from her courageous human rights work,” said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the high commissioner. “The human rights defender is believed to have serious medical conditions and has reportedly not been granted adequate access to the specialised medical care she needs. The UN human rights office and other human rights mechanisms have long urged the Iranian authorities to release Ms Mohammadi, but to no avail.
“Her sentencing is illustrative of an increasingly low tolerance for human rights advocacy in Iran. We urge the Iranian authorities to ensure the immediate release of Ms Mohammadi and all those detained for merely exercising their human rights.”
Mohammadi, a mother of two received the City of Paris medal for her peaceful activism this year.
After a previous arrest, in 2010, Mohammadi was kept in solitary confinement in Tehran’s Evin prison, where she developed an undiagnosed disease that has been likened to epilepsy and causes her temporarily to lose control over her muscles.

Since May, Mohammadi has been allowed only one phone call with her nine-year-old twins, who have been forced to live abroad. “I am left wondering how to tell Ali and Kiana, who have only heard Narges’s voice once over the past year, that their mother has got another 10 years in prison,” Mohammadi’s husband, Taghi Rahmani, told Amnesty. “They are only nine and have been through hard days since they were three. But I have to prepare myself to tell them what has happened.”
Philip Luther, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Amnesty International, said Mohammadi’s sentence was another example of Iran’s use of “vaguely-worded national security charges” against peaceful activists.
“There’s no doubt that she’s being unjustly punished for her steadfast commitment to human rights,” he said. “The authorities have made clear their ruthless determination to silence human rights defenders and instil fear in would-be critics of their policies. Narges Mohammadi is a prisoner of conscience and the Iranian authorities should immediately and unconditionally release her and quash her conviction.”
Source: The Guardian, 24 May