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In a joint letter addressed to the UN Human Rights Council, the Free Narges Coalition and other human rights groups, including the Observatory (FIDH-OMCT), urge for the immediate medical release of the journalist and woman human rights defender Narges Mohammadi.
To the United Nations Human Rights Council,
We,
the undersigned free expression and human rights organisations, write
to you in response to the recent news that jailed Iranian Nobel Peace
Prize Laureate Narges Mohammadi is in urgent need of medical
care. Ahead of Iran’s review under the UN Human Rights Council’s
Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism, which takes place over the
next two months in Geneva, we urge you to call on the Iranian
authorities to grant Mohammadi a medical furlough on humanitarian
grounds so that she is able to receive comprehensive and essential
care for a range of serious medical conditions.
Mohammadi,
a woman human rights defender, journalist, author, and former deputy
director and spokesperson of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre
(DHRC) in Iran, has spent more than 10 years of her life in prison,
with her current period of detention starting in November 2021. She
is currently serving sentences totalling 13 years and nine months in
prison, on charges including committing “propaganda activity
against the state” and “collusion against state security.” An
internationally renowned writer and activist, she is the recipient of
numerous international awards for her tireless struggle for human
rights, including the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, the 2023
UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, the 2023 PEN/Barbey
Freedom to Write Award, and the 2022 Reporters Without Borders Prize
for Courage.
Mohammadi’s
health has deteriorated
drastically during her long incarceration, most
notably in 2022, when she suffered multiple heart attacks before
ultimately being transferred to hospital for emergency heart surgery.
In early October
2024, Mohammadi’s family expressed serious concerns regarding
repeated refusals by Evin prison officials to transfer her to a
hospital for appointments to carry out an angiography, an
intervention that was prescribed by her cardiologist in March; she
was finally allowed to attend an appointment on October 27, 2024. On
November 3, her lawyer announced
that during her recent medical visit, doctors discovered a bone
lesion in her right leg suspected of being cancerous. Although
Mohammadi underwent surgery to remove part of the bone in her lower
leg, including a bone graft, on November 14, she was transferred back
to prison after only two days, against her doctor’s advice and
another request from her legal team that she be granted a medical
furlough and sentence suspension. Years of imprisonment and months of
solitary confinement have severely compromised Mohammadi’s health,
leaving her with multiple serious conditions that cannot be addressed
through a short, incomplete hospital visit.
Prison
authorities’ withholding of essential urgent medical treatment from
Mohammadi displays a callous disregard for her health and well-being
under detention. Worryingly, her case is not unique, but is part of a
systematic pattern of arbitrary medical neglect of prisoners,
including human rights defenders, journalists, and writers. In a
particularly egregious example, poet and filmmaker Baktash Abtin died
in state custody in January 2022 after delays in being
provided with timely medical care. The news of Mohammadi’s
deteriorating medical condition comes amid a current wave of denying
medical care to multiple prisoners
of conscience in Iran, particularly less well-known
detainees. We echo the recent call from 22 prisoners in the women’s
ward of Evin Prison, in which they hold the Iranian government and
judiciary responsible for creating the conditions whereby the lives
of prisoners are put at grave risk, and appeal to international human
rights stakeholders in joining them to push for change.
As
Mohammadi marks the third anniversary of her unjust detention on
November 16, we, the undersigned organisations, are making an urgent
call for her full and unconditional release as she should not be in
prison in the first place, and in the interim, to be granted an
immediate medical furlough on humanitarian grounds, given the
precarious state of her health and her need for comprehensive care.
In addition, we urge that Iranian authorities stop the
criminalisation of human rights, and refrain from summoning human
rights defenders, journalists, and writers to serve their prison
sentences while their health situation is precarious.
We
urge the UN Human Rights Council to ensure that the Iranian
government commits to implementing without delay a recommendation
that it accepted during the last UPR cycle five years ago, namely to
ensure that “all individuals in custody receive adequate health
care and treatment, including preventive measures, such as screening
for medical conditions, free of charge and without discrimination.”
Finally, we reiterate our broader call that all those unjustly
detained for their human rights work, including expression, be
immediately and unconditionally released, and urge the UN Human
Rights Council and national and international stakeholders to join us
in pressing the Iranian authorities to uphold the basic human rights
of all Iranians, especially those who are being prosecuted for their
human rights work.
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