'Threatened with physical elimination': Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi says Iran threatens her life

Dubai: Iran’s security services have threatened the life of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi following the country’s conflict with Israel, the Norwegian Nobel Committee and activists said Friday.

According to the committee, Mohammadi received threats through both her lawyer and other indirect channels, as she continued to speak out publicly against the Islamic Republic’s theocratic regime, women’s rights violations, and other issues.

“The clear message, in her own words, is that I have been directly and indirectly threatened with physical elimination' by agents of the regime,'” the committee said in its announcement.

The threats come amid a broader climate of repression, as Iran has carried out arrests and executions following its recent 12-day war with Israel, fueling fears of an intensified crackdown on human rights activists and dissidents.

The Free Narges Coalition Steering Committee, which supports the 53-year-old Nobel laureate, stated that the threats against her came from Iran’s Intelligence Ministry. While Iranian authorities have not officially responded to Mohammadi’s recent statements, the country’s mission to the United Nations in New York also did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

She herself fled Tehran for a time during the Israeli airstrikes and said: "War does not have the capacity for the fundamental transformation that the Iranian people seek.”

“In Iran, there is a misogynistic and religious government helmed by (Supreme Leader Ayatollah) Ali Khamenei who has taken us to hell while promising paradise,” Mohammadi told the Wall Street Journal recently. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "is taking us to hell while promising freedom and democracy.”

Mohammadi has been out on a medical furlough from prison, where she is serving 13 years and nine months on charges of collusion against state security and propaganda against Iran's government.

She has kept up her activism, despite numerous arrests by Iranian authorities and spending years behind bars. That includes backing the nationwide, women-led protests sparked by the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, which have seen women openly defy the government by not wearing the hijab. (AP)