catastrophic deteriorationof her health, Iranian prosecutors in Zanjan are blocking her transfer to the specialized medical teams in Tehran necessary for her survival.
The transfer of Narges Mohammadi from prison to a hospital in Zanjan on Friday was not a planned medical evacuation, but a reaction to a catastrophic deterioration and loss of consciousness. According to the Narges Mohammadi Foundation, the 54-year-old activist suffered two episodes of complete loss of consciousness and a severe cardiac crisis before being moved to intensive care.
While she is now in a hospital bed, her family and legal team warn that the location is insufficient. Mohammadi is currently held in a provincial capital northwest of Tehran, far from the specialists who manage her complex medical history. The foundation described the move as a desperate, ‘last-minute’ action that may be too late to address her critical needs
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The critical gap in Zanjan’s care
The medical concerns regarding Mohammadi’s hospitalization focus on the requirements for specialized cardiology compared to the general intensive care available in a provincial city. Mohammadi does not just suffer from acute cardiac distress; she has a history of pulmonary embolism and has previously undergone angiography and stenting.
Hamidreza Mohammadi, the laureate’s brother, emphasized that these pre-existing conditions make the current facility inadequate for her needs. Speaking to the BBC, he detailed the clinical barriers facing her treatment.
“Her current problems include low blood pressure and a heart attack, but her previous conditions, such as pulmonary embolism (…) and having undergone stenting and angiography, make any treatment by the doctors in Zanjan effectively impossible.” Hamidreza Mohammadi
The foundation reports that her medical team has explicitly advised a transfer to Tehran, where she has an established specialized care team. However, the request has not been granted by the authorities. While prison doctors eventually determined her condition could not be managed on-site, the move to Zanjan was an action that provided immediate stabilization but does not address the specific clinical needs identified by her specialists.
This current situation leaves Mohammadi in a critical state. According to NBC News, her family believes she is fighting for her life
while the bureaucracy of the Zanjan prosecutor’s office prevents the only viable medical solution.
A timeline of medical neglect
The current health crisis follows a period of declining health and reported difficulties in accessing specialized care. The Narges Mohammadi Foundation states that the recent transfer occurred after 140 days of systematic medical neglect
following her arrest on December 12.
The pattern of neglect became acute in March. On March 24, fellow inmates discovered Mohammadi unconscious. Her lawyers, who visited her a few days later, reported that she appeared pale and underweight, requiring a nurse’s assistance to walk. A prison clinic doctor later informed her that she had likely suffered a heart attack. Since that incident, she has struggled with breathing difficulties and persistent chest pain.
During that period, her legal representative in France, Chirinne Ardakani, stated that Mohammadi was denied both a transfer to a hospital and the ability to visit her cardiologist. This refusal to provide specialist care echoes earlier struggles Mohammadi faced while imprisoned in Tehran’s Evin Prison.
In the book For the Sun After Long Nights: The Story of Iran’s Women-Led Uprising, journalists Fatemeh Jamalpour and Nilo Tabrizy describe a previous instance where Mohammadi had to use extreme measures to receive care.
“The judiciary system eventually had to give in after she and several female prisoners went on a hunger strike for three days. Only then did she go to the hospital to have heart surgery,” Fatemeh Jamalpour and Nilo Tabrizy
Institutional barriers and legal pressure
The refusal to transfer Mohammadi to Tehran occurs in the context of her ongoing legal challenges within the Iranian judicial system. Mohammadi, a central figure in the Woman, Life, Freedom
movement, is currently serving an 18-year prison sentence. Her recent legal trajectory shows continued legal restrictions despite her failing health.
In December 2024, she had been granted a medical furlough. However, while still on that furlough in December 2025, she spoke out against the regime at a fellow activist’s funeral and was promptly re-arrested. This led to a sentence of 10 years on charges of threatening national security. In February, an additional seven and a half years were added to her term.
Her family reports that her health was further compromised by a beating she endured during that December arrest. The Nobel committee formally condemned the ongoing life-threatening mistreatment
of the activist in February.
Now, the bottleneck is the Zanjan prosecution. While the medical necessity of a Tehran transfer is documented by her team, the legal authorities in the provincial capital have maintained a blockade on her movement. Hamidreza Mohammadi described the situation as a direct conflict between family desperation and state obstruction.
“My family in Iran is doing everything they can. But the prosecutors in Zanjan are blocking everything,” Hamidreza Mohammadi
According to reporting from NPR, Mohammadi’s history of activism has made her a frequent target of the judiciary; she has been arrested 13 times, convicted five times, and has faced a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes throughout her life.
What to watch
The immediate priority is whether the Zanjan prosecutors will yield to international and familial pressure to allow a medical evacuation to Tehran. Given the foundation’s warning that the current hospitalization was a last-minute
action, the window for effective intervention is narrow.
Observers will be monitoring for any official statement from the Iranian judiciary regarding the transfer request. Additionally, the response of the Nobel Committee and international human rights bodies may increase the diplomatic cost of continued medical neglect. The primary indicator of the situation’s urgency will be whether Mohammadi’s condition stabilizes in Zanjan or if further cardiac episodes trigger a forced, and potentially too-late, transfer to the capital.
