By Pishtaz | 2024-12-02

More than 40 free expression and human rights organizations are calling on the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council to intervene for the urgent medical release of Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi.

The human rights defender, journalist, author and former deputy director of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre in Iran, has spent more than 10 years in prison. Her current period of detention started in November 2021.

In a November 18 letter to the UN Human Rights Council, rights groups urged it to call on the Iranian authorities to grant Mohammadi a medical furlough on humanitarian grounds.

This would enable her to receive comprehensive and essential care for a range of serious medical conditions, it said.

"Mohammadi’s health has deteriorated drastically during her long incarceration, most notably in 2022, when she suffered multiple heart attacks before ultimately being transferred to hospital for emergency heart surgery," the letter said.

More recently, a critical medical procedure was delayed for months, and a hospital stay for a serious condition was curtailed.

"Years of imprisonment and months of solitary confinement have severely compromised Mohammadi’s health, leaving her with multiple serious conditions that cannot be addressed through a short, incomplete hospital visit," it said.

The withholding of essential urgent medical treatment "displays a callous disregard for her health and wellbeing under detention," the letter said.

"Worryingly, her case is not unique, but is part of a systematic pattern of arbitrary medical neglect of prisoners, including human rights defenders, journalists, and writers," it added.

Clear double standards

The Iranian regime's "callous disregard" for the health of a female human rights activist comes in sharp contrast to its response following the pager attacks of September 17 and 18 that targeted IRGC and Hizbullah operatives in Lebanon.

Following the incident, the regime sent eight eye specialists and a team of nurses to Beirut, Iran’s health minister Mohammadreza Zafarghandi told the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.

A further 95 people were flown to Tehran for treatment, per Iran’s Red Crescent.

Iranian media outlets showed videos and photos of an aircraft transporting the wounded, many of them suffering eye injuries, Bloomberg reported.

In one image, President Masoud Pezeshkian -- who has reaffirmed his commitment to support Hizbullah -- is seen at the bedside of one of those being treated at the Farabi Eye Hospital in Tehran, it said.