Narges Mohammadi transferred to Zanjan prison without family notice

Iranian authorities transferred activist Narges Mohammadi, winner of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, from a detention facility in the city of Mashhad to a prison in Zanjan in northern Iran without prior notice, according to her husband.

Mohammadi, known for her advocacy to abolish the death penalty and mandatory hijab laws in Iran, has spent most of the past decade behind bars.

She was temporarily released in December 2024 due to her health condition and remained out of prison until she was rearrested in December 2025 while attending a memorial for a lawyer.

Her lawyer confirmed last week that the judiciary had issued a new six-year prison sentence against her. Her foundation also stated that she ended a hunger strike that lasted nearly a week amid a “deterioration in her health condition.”

Since her arrest, the 53-year-old Mohammadi had been held at a detention center affiliated with the Ministry of Intelligence in Mashhad in northeastern Iran. She was allowed to communicate only with her brother and her lawyer inside Iran.

However, authorities transferred her to a prison in the city of Zanjan, where she was born, according to her husband, , who resides in Paris.

He wrote on X that the transfer was carried out “without informing her family or her lawyer,” describing the move as an attempt to “exile Narges.”

The Norwegian Nobel Committee had expressed its dismay on Wednesday over Mohammadi’s arrest, warning about her worsening health and condemning what it described as her “violent arrest and ongoing physical mistreatment that threatens” her life.

ANHA