Iran sentences Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammadi to one year in prison for "propaganda"

Iranian women's rights activist Narges Mohammadi, winner of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize and already imprisoned in her country, was sentenced to one year in prison for "propaganda against the state", her lawyer announced on Tuesday in X. 

"According to the verdict of the 29th Chamber of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, Narges Mohammadi was sentenced to one year in prison for propaganda against the state," Mostafa Nili said.

The 52-year-old activist, who has been imprisoned since November 2021, has been convicted and imprisoned numerous times over the past 25 years for her commitment against compulsory veiling for women and against the death penalty. 

She had refused to attend her retrial hearing on 8 June, after unsuccessfully requesting that it be opened to the public. 

Lawyer Nili explained that his client had been tried for "her statements about Dina Ghalibaf (an Iranian journalist and student who had accused the police of sexual assault), and about the boycott of the legislative elections" held in Iran in March. 

In March, the activist issued an audio message from prison, denouncing a "full-scale war on women" in the Islamic Republic. 

Women in Iran have been bound by a strict dress code that requires them to hide their hair in public places since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

In her message Mohamadi had cited the case of Dina Ghalibaf, who, according to an NGO, was arrested in mid-April after accusing police on social media of sexually assaulting her during an earlier arrest in the underground. 

She was subsequently released. 

Justice representative Mizan Online said on 22 April that the student had "not been raped" and that the judicial authority had prosecuted her for making "a misleading statement".