Nobel laureate warns Iran is increasingly repressing its own citizens

Yahoo

5 days ago

One of Iran's most prominent human rights advocates is warning that the Iranian government is using the aftermath of its 12-day war with Israel to escalate repression against its own citizens -- particularly political and civil activists.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, in a video message to ABC News, warned that a surge in executions and widespread arrests since the war began shows that the regime is using the moment to deflect from decades of alleged repression and failed policy, with the aim to "spread fear and terror."
"We are now witnessing the intensification of the war between the Islamic Republic and the people of Iran -- a war that's been going on for 46 years," Mohammadi said.
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While Iranian authorities have publicly celebrated what they call a "victory" over Israel, Mohammadi rejects that claim.
"I simply don't believe this," she said. "War weakens the very tools needed to achieve human rights and democracy -- like civil society. I believe that with the Islamic Republic still in power after this war, our work and our fight have now become even more difficult."
She warned that the regime, "now weakened," has tightened its grip on civil liberties, turning on alleged traitors from within.
Iranian authorities, while acknowledging damage to parts of their nuclear facilities and infrastructure, insist they remain strong and unified. State-affiliated media have framed the recent wave of arrests and executions as necessary measures to protect national security, alleging infiltration and espionage linked to Israel's Mossad intelligence agency.
Mohammadi spoke from her home in Tehran, where she is defying a government order to return to Iran's notorious Evin Prison following urgent, life-saving surgery. Mohammadi, who is serving a 13-year, 9-month sentence, was granted a medical furlough from the prison, where many of the country's dissidents and political prisoners are held.
She and other activists have expressed particular concern over the condition and fate of Evin's prisoners following Israel's June 23 missile strike on the facility. According to Iran's judiciary spokesperson, at least 71 people were killed in the strike, which the United Nations Human Rights Office condemned as a "gross violation" of international law. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel hit "regime targets and agencies of government repression" across Tehran, including Evin.
While Mohammadi also condemned the strike, she warned that what has followed may pose an even greater human rights threat.
Mohammadi, who was on furlough at the time of the attack, told ABC News she has spoken extensively with prisoners and their families.
"After the attack, the situation inside Evin became extremely securitized," said Mohammadi, who all told has been handed more than 36 years of prison time on multiple charges including committing 'propaganda activity against the state' and 'collusion against state security" -- vaguely defined national security offenses commonly used by authorities to criminalize peaceful dissent.
"Prisoner transfers are now happening under heavily militarized conditions." Mohammadi said, "with full sniper coverage [and prisoners] shackled with both handcuffs and leg irons."
Following days of uncertainty, Iran's Prisons Organization announced that detainees had been transferred to other prisons across Tehran Province. State media reported that many were moved to facilities including Qarchak Prison and Greater Tehran Prison.
"The situation inside both prisons is extremely worrying," Mohammadi said, describing the transferred inmates as "war-affected detainees" now subjected to what she called "severe repression."
A source close to the families of several political prisoners, who asked that their name not be used due to fear of reprisals, told ABC News that conditions in Qarchak Prison are "unbearable" and "akin to torture," citing overcrowding, a lack of food and drinking water, poor sanitation, and insufficient access to basic necessities.
Three political prisoners -- Golrokh Iraee, Reyhaneh Ansari and Varisheh Moradi -- issued a joint statement from Qarchak Prison, saying, "We do not consider today's suffering of our own to be greater than the suffering imposed on the people of Iran."
Mohammadi told ABC News that she is calling for renewed international scrutiny of Iran's treatment of its own citizens.
MORE: 71 killed in Israeli attack on Iran prison, official says
"I believe our situation has become even more dangerous for the people than it was before the war, and we must expand our human rights activities," she said. "I hope international human rights organizations will refocus their special and particular attention on the repressions now being carried out in Iran after the war -- including the issue of arrests, prisons, torture, forced confessions, and then the executions."
Mohammadi also warned that based on "clear evidence and reports," she expects that the government's crackdown on civil society, particularly young people and activists, is likely to "become even more severe" in the coming days.
Despite the regime's efforts to silence dissent, Mohammadi said she remains committed to her activism, even as pressure mounts on her, her family, and friends. A member of her support team told ABC News that she has received repeated phone calls demanding her return to prison, and that intelligence agents have summoned, interrogated, and harassed her friends and family in what appears to be an effort to isolate her.
Her team also says Iranian financial authorities issued an official order to seize Mohammadi's Nobel Peace Prize award money -- 17 billion toman or approximately USD $400,000 -- echoing a similar tactic used against fellow Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi in 2009.
"I want to see an end to the Islamic Republic -- a repressive, theocratic, and authoritarian system that is misogynistic, unreformable, and fundamentally dysfunctional," Mohammadi's said. "But I am against war -- because it drains the strength and capacity of the Iranian people, civil society, and pro-democracy activists."
Still, she remains hopeful.
"For decades, we've been fighting for freedom, democracy, and equality -- enduring repression, imprisonment, executions, and torture. But we've never backed down," she said. "Until the day democracy is achieved -- I will not stop."