Nobel laureate Mohammadi in Iran hospital after ‘cardiac crisis’, foundation says

May 2 (Reuters) – Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi was in an unstable condition in an Iranian hospital on Saturday after she was taken there from prison following a catastrophic deterioration of her health, a foundation run by her family said.

The secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awarded Mohammadi the 2023 prize, had expressed concern on Thursday that the condition of the Iranian human rights activist was worsening after she had suffered a heart attack in prison.

Mohammadi, in her 50s, won the prize while in prison for her campaign to advance women’s rights and abolish the death penalty in Iran.

The Narges Mohammadi Foundation said in a statement on its website on Friday that she had been “urgently transferred to a hospital in Zanjan today following a catastrophic deterioration of her health, including two episodes of complete loss of consciousness and a severe cardiac crisis.”

This transfer was an “unavoidable necessity after prison doctors determined her condition could not be managed on-site,” it said.

In an update on Saturday, the foundation said she remained in an unstable condition receiving oxygen. It called for her to be transferred to a hospital in Tehran for tests and specialised treatment.

Reuters could not independently confirm her condition.

Mohammadi was sentenced to a new prison term of 7-1/2 years, the foundation said in February, weeks before the U.S. and Israel launched their war against Iran. The Nobel committee at the time called on Tehran to free her immediately.

She was arrested in December after denouncing the death of a lawyer, Khosrow Alikordi; prosecutor Hasan Hematifar told reporters then she had made provocative remarks at Alikordi’s memorial ceremony.

On Friday morning, Mohammadi fainted after days of dangerously high blood pressure and severe nausea, the foundation said. After multiple bouts of vomiting, she blacked out and was moved to the prison medical unit for emergency intravenous fluids.

The activist, who has undergone three angioplasty procedures, faces a “direct and immediate” threat to her right to life, her family said. “We call for all charges to be dropped immediately and for all sentences imposed for her peaceful human rights work to be unconditionally annulled.”

(Reporting by Preetika Parashuraman in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by William Mallard, Peter Graff)