Iranian security forces on Friday detained the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi along with at least eight other activists in an arrest condemned as “brutal” by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Mohammadi, who was granted temporary leave from prison in December 2024, was detained along with eight other activists at the ceremony for lawyer Khosrow Alikordi, who was found dead in his office last week, her foundation wrote on social media.
Those arrested at the ceremony in the eastern city of Mashhad included Mohammadi’s fellow prominent activist Sepideh Gholian, who had previously been jailed alongside her in Tehran’s Evin prison.
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“These individuals were present solely to pay their respects and express solidarity at a memorial ceremony,” her foundation said, adding the arrests “constitute a blatant and serious violation of fundamental freedoms and basic human rights”.
“Narges was beaten on the legs and she was held by her hair and dragged down,” said one of her brothers, Hamid Mohammadi, who lives in Oslo.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it was “deeply concerned by today’s brutal arrest” of Mohammadi, calling on Iran to “immediately” clarify her whereabouts.