Jailed Nobel Peace Prize Winner Mohammadi on Hunger Strike

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has begun a hunger strike to protest being blocked together with other inmates from getting medical care and the Islamic Republic’s mandatory headscarf rules for women, her family says.

A post on Mohammadi’s Instagram page, which is managed by her relatives, said that she sent a message from Tehran’s Evin prison on November 6 and “informed her family that she started a hunger strike several hours ago” in protest of “the Islamic Republic's policy of delaying and neglecting medical care for sick inmates” and its “policy of ‘death’ or ‘mandatory hijab’ for Iranian women.”

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The family expressed concern about Mohammadi's “physical condition and health,” adding that the outspoken activist and her lawyer for weeks have sought her transfer to a specialist hospital for heart and lung care.

It did not elaborate on what conditions the 51-year-old Mohammadi suffered from, though it described her as receiving an echocardiogram of her heart.

Mohammadi’s decision increases pressure on Iran's theocratic rulers over her incarceration, a month after she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for keeping up her activism despite numerous arrests and spending years behind bars.