Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi went on a hunger strike on Monday because she, along with other prisoners, was denied medical care and to protest the country’s requirement for women to wear headscarves, a campaign supporting the activist said. The 51-year-old Mohammadi’s decision increases pressure on the Iranian theocracy over her imprisonment, a month after she was awarded the Nobel Prize for her years of activism despite a decades-long government campaign against her. Meanwhile, another detained activist, lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, reportedly needs medical care, which she has not yet received, the AP reports. She was arrested while attending the funeral of a teenager who died in controversial circumstances on the Tehran metro without wearing a hijab.
The Free Narges Mohammadi campaign said it sent a message from Evin prison and “informed her family that she started a hunger strike a few hours ago.” It was said that Mohammadi and her lawyer had been trying for weeks to have her transferred to a specialist heart and lung hospital. It was not specified what ailments Mohammadi was suffering from, but it was described as having an echocardiogram of her heart. “Narges went on a hunger strike today… in protest against two things: the Islamic Republic’s policy of delaying and neglecting medical care for sick inmates… (and the) policy of ‘death’ or ‘headscarf’ for Iranian women. “ was the explanation. It added that the Islamic Republic “is responsible for everything that happens to our beloved Narges.”
Iranian officials and his state-controlled television channel did not immediately acknowledge Mohammadi’s hunger strike. While women in Iran hold jobs, academic positions and even government positions, their lives are tightly controlled. Women are required by law to wear a hijab to cover their hair. However, since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody last year, more and more women are choosing not to wear it, despite increasing authorities’ crackdown on them. Mohammadi has continued her activism despite numerous arrests by Iranian authorities and years in prison. She remained a leading figure in the nationwide women-led protests sparked by Amini’s death that have become one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s theocratic government.
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