Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who is imprisoned in Iran, began a hunger strike on Monday to express her disapproval of the hijab rule that has been forced upon her and to protest not receiving medical treatment.
Muhammadi is now serving a 10-year term and has been out of prison for the most of the previous ten years. Last month, she received the Nobel Peace Prize.
According to accounts, Mohammadi has lung and heart conditions, but since she refuses to wear the hijab—the Islamic head covering for women—prison officials are not sending her to a doctor.
Women must cover their heads while they are in public in Iran. Following the overthrow of the pro-Western liberal monarchy in 1979 by the Islamic Revolution, which installed a theocratic Islamic state headed by the Supreme Leader of Iran, the law was enforced on women.
According to the Associated Press (AP), lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, another activist, is being refused medical attention despite needing it after being jailed for attending the burial of a young girl who passed away under inexplicable circumstances from injuries she received while not wearing a hijab.
Mahammadi and Sotoudeh are being held in Iran’s infamous Evin Prison.
According to Mohammadi’s relatives, she had lung hypertension and three vein blockages, according to AP. The Free Narges Mohammadi campaign said she “informed her family that she started a hunger strike several hours ago” in a message she sent on Monday, citing a statement from her family overseas.
“Today, Narges started on a hunger strike in protest of two things: the Islamic Republic’s practice of putting off and ignoring medical treatment for ill prisoners, which causes people to lose their lives and health. The statement said, as reported by AP, “the policy of death’ or mandatory hijab’ for Iranian women.” The Islamic Republic “is responsible for anything that happens to our beloved Narges,” the statement said. Later, it said that Muhammadi refused to take medication and “only consumed water, sugar, and salt.”
Regarding Mohammadi’s health, the Norwegian Nobel Committee expressed its “deep concern.”
“It is cruel and immoral for female prisoners to be hospitalized if they are required to wear a headscarf. The fact that Narges Mohammadi started a hunger strike shows how terrible the issue is. According to AP, Berit Reiss-Andersen, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, “urges the Iranian authorities to provide Narges Mohammadi, and other female inmates, with whatever medical assistance they may need.”
Iran’s Defenders of Human Rights Center has Mohammadi as its vice president. According to BBC News, she has been arrested thirteen times so far, found guilty five times, and received a cumulative sentence of thirty-one years in jail. According to the article, she was also given a sentence of 154 lashes, although it’s unclear whether those lashes have really been administered.
Following the murder of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died from torture while in the care of Iran’s notorious morality police, Mohammadi was hailed by the AP as a “leading light” for the country’s women-led rallies. She was pulled over in a vehicle with her brother for allegedly breaking the nation’s hijab laws. Sotoudeh, 60, a fellow prisoner of Mohammadi, was incarcerated for attending the burial of Armita Geravand, a 16-year-old who died unexplainedly from injuries she received when boarding a train without a headscarf. According to activists, the youngster could have been assaulted for not wearing a headscarf.