March 25, 2022
Lawyer and human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, who was on furlough for open-heart surgery, has been ordered back to prison.
The human rights defender was ordered to return to Qarchak Prison March 5, according to Iran International. But she refused to go.
On March 18, she posted on Instagram that she was still refusing to go to prison and that the authorities had not yet tried to pick her up. On March 23, she said the situation remained the same, 2-1/2 weeks after she rebelled. She said she would continue to disobey the order as long as the government did not try to confiscate the 5 billion rials ($20,000) someone posted to bail her out of jail earlier.
In a five-minute trial late in January, she was sentenced to eight years in jail and 70 lashes by a Revolutionary Court.
Taghi Rahmani, her husband, told Radio Farda that doctors believe she needs a longer period for recovery since surgeons cut through her breastbone and spread her ribs to access her heart, requiring the patient to rest for 6 to 12 weeks.
Mohammadi was arrested last November. In a letter from prison, she said the court in its ruling had cited her nomination for a Nobel Prize by the Norway branch of Amnesty International as evidence of her criminality.
She has been to jail several times over the past two decades. She was freed from Evin Prison in September 2020 after serving more than five years and was previously in prison from 2009 to 2013.
Her principal offense appears to be that she was one of the staff of the Human Rights Defenders Office, which was founded by Shirin Ebadi with the funds she was awarded along with her Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. Her other presumed offense is to be outspoken in criticizing the regime.
