Spain welcomes the hospitalization of Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi and demands the “complete lifting” of her sentence

Eduardo González Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares welcomed the hospitalization of Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, on Monday, but demanded the “complete lifting” of her sentence and her “immediate” release. Last Thursday, Albares announced before the full session of Congress that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had summoned the Iranian ambassador in Madrid, Reza Zabib, to convey its concern about the situation of women's rights activist Narges Mohammadi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, “who is in critical health condition after her condition worsened in prison.” Narges Mohammadi, 54, vice president of the Center for Human Rights Defenders, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 while serving a ten-year prison sentence in Tehran, “for her struggle against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.” According to her family, she was brutally beaten by prison authorities and, after a three-month hunger strike, suffered what may have been a heart attack. Although she was admitted to a hospital in Zanjan, the city where she is serving her sentence, in critical condition on May 2, there were fears that she would be returned to prison, where her life would be in danger. Mohammadi was admitted to a Tehran hospital on Sunday for treatment of her “multiple illnesses,” at the request of family members and doctors, after Iranian authorities agreed to suspend her sentence “for medical reasons” in exchange for bail. “I want to point out that, at this moment, the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Ms. Mohammadi, is receiving medical attention, as Spain has been demanding, and that is why last week we summoned the Iranian chargé d'affaires to demand her release and that she receive medical treatment,” Albares declared on Monday in Brussels, upon arriving at the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting. “I want to tell the Iranian authorities that this is the way forward, that Ms. Mohammadi must receive medical treatment at this critical time for her, for her life, and that this suspension of her sentence must become a complete lifting of that sentence,” he continued. "Ms. Mohammadi must be released immediately, which is why we summoned the Iranian ambassador last week to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and I also demanded this in the debate that took place in Congress last week," he concluded.

Related Content

50 years since Juan Carlos I's trip to the US that sealed international support for the Transition

The “Madrid Declaration” calls for gender parity “in all areas of foreign policy”

A political ally of Kast, Juan Antonio Coloma, is Chile's new ambassador to Spain

The Government of Peru dismisses its ambassador in Spain, who will continue in office until the end of July

The Cervantes Institute will hold its Annual Directors' Meeting in Jerez at the end of July