Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi Details Torture of Solitary Confinement in Smuggled Prison Writings

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has described the torture of solitary confinement and systematic medical neglect in an exclusive extract of writings smuggled from prison in Iran.

The writings from the past decade form part of her memoir, A Woman Never Stops Fighting, set for publication in September. They offer rare insight into her treatment during multiple imprisonments. Mohammadi details beatings, constant interrogations, deprivation of medical care and long periods in solitary confinement. She is currently in critical condition.

“There is no hardship worse than illness combined with imprisonment,” she wrote. “Authoritarian regimes do not always need an executioner’s rope. Sometimes, they simply wait for the human body to fail.”

After writing those words, Mohammadi faced rearrest. Her health reached another crisis this year, with her weight dropping more than 20 kilograms. She was found unconscious in her cell following an apparent heart attack in March. Her family and doctors requested treatment from her team of surgeons in Tehran, but prison authorities repeatedly denied the requests. She is now held at a small regional hospital in Zanjan in critical condition.

Her family said her ongoing detention and refusal of proper medical care amount to a “slow execution.”

Mohammadi wrote that her prison stints caused severe health damage, including a pulmonary embolism, seizures, multiple infections, chest pain and other life-threatening events. She described agonizing waits for often inadequate medical care.

Fellow prisoners and visitors smuggled the writings out of Iran's Evin, Qarchak and Zanjan prisons at great risk to themselves. The texts had to be rewritten several times after guards discovered and destroyed pages or notebooks.

The memoir covers Mohammadi’s early life, how her parents inspired her political convictions, her entry into activism and years in prison for public protest.

Mohammadi has faced arrest 14 times for activism on women’s rights in Iran, prison conditions and ending the death penalty. Courts sentenced her to 44 years in prison and 154 lashes across multiple convictions. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 while imprisoned, amid the Women, Life, Freedom protests.

In December 2024, she gained temporary release on sentence suspension after health crises. Authorities violently rearrested her a year later and added years to her sentence in February this year.