Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi arrested in Iran

Kousholy Ema:  Narges Mohammadi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was beaten and arrested in Iran on Friday while addressing a crowd in the city of Mashhad, according to her family.

“If they intend to hurt her, I don’t see any positive outcome,” says Hamid Reza Mohammadi, a brother, speaking to TIME from Oslo. “The biggest concern I have is her health.” Mohammadi, 53, has been on medical furlough from an Iranian prison for the last year. She had resumed the activism for which the Nobel committee awarded her the 2023 peace prize, advocating in interviews and small groups for women’s rights, the release of political prisoners and, as she wrote for TIME last week, a peaceful transition from Iran’s brutal regime to an electoral democracy.

Friday, however, was the first time since being furloughed that she addressed a crowd.

Mohammadi had traveled from her home in Tehran to the eastern city of Mashhad to attend a memorial for a human rights lawyer named Khosrow Alikordi, who had been found dead earlier this month. In videos posted on social media, she is seen standing on a car after the service, addressing mourners outside the mosque.

BP/SM