The Human Rights Committee has sent an open letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader, appealing for the immediate release of Narges Mohammadi, a human rights defender and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.
Narges Mohammadi was rearrested in December 2025 after having been temporarily furloughed from Evin Prison for medical reasons. The arrest took place in connection with a memorial ceremony for the Iranian human rights lawyer Khosrow Ali Kordi. Mohammadi was violently beaten on her head and neck and subsequently required hospital care.
The Committee appeals for her immediate release and stresses that she must be provided with all needed medical care and that her conditions of confinement must conform with the U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
Brevet i sin helhet:
Stockholm 22 January 2026
Your Excellency,
We are writing to respectfully request your urgent assistance with the deeply troubling situation of our professional colleague, Ms. Narges Mohammadi, who was violently beaten and detained on December 12, seemingly for peacefully exercising her right to freedom of expression.
Ms. Mohammadi has been recognized globally, including as the 2023 Nobel Peace Laureate, for her efforts to promote and protect the rights of women, prisoners of conscience, and others within Iran. As a result of her longtime peaceful activities in support of human rights, she has been subjected to years of judicial harassment, including repeated arbitrary detention and violent attacks. We understand that Ms. Mohammadi was beaten repeatedly with batons and clubs on her head and neck by numerous plain-clothed agents and violently arrested on December 12—together with a number of other well-known activists—outside a mosque in northeastern Iran where a memorial ceremony was taking place for Iranian human rights lawyer Khosrow Ali Kordi. Following a brief telephone call with her late on December 14, her family reported that her injuries were so severe that she was taken to the hospital twice and that she had asked her legal team to file a formal complaint about her ill-treatment. We understand that, during and after her arrest, she was accused of cooperating with the Israeli government and threatened with death.
Ms. Mohammadi has been serving a lengthy prison sentence on spurious criminal charges related to her human rights advocacy but had been temporarily furloughed from Evin Prison for medical reasons since December 2024. Our concerns about her rearrest and the injuries she reportedly sustained are heightened by the fact that she suffers from serious heart and lung ailments.
The criminalization of Ms. Mohammadi’s peaceful exercise of her fundamental right to freedom of expression is inconsistent with Iran’s binding obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Therefore, we respectfully request you to use your good offices to ensure her prompt release from detention and to ensure that a full, independent, and transparent investigation of Ms. Mohammadi’s complaint of ill-treatment is carried out—with accountability for those responsible for her ill-treatment. In the interim, we ask that you take steps to ensure that her conditions of confinement conform with the U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, including that she have unfettered access to all needed medical care and to regular communication with her family.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
Respectfully yours,
Stefan Svallfors
Professor, Chairman of the Human Rights Committee of Sweden’s Scientific and Literary Academies
Akademiernas kommitté för mänskliga rättigheter består av representanter från Kungl. Vetenskapsakademien, Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Svenska Akademien och Sveriges unga akademi.
