Nobel laureate says Iran accused her of Israel ties after violent arrest
Narges Mohammadi, the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner, addresses mourners in Mashhad on Dec. 12, 2025
Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, who was violently detained after attending a memorial service for a human rights lawyer, told her family she has been accused of cooperating with the Israeli government, according to her X account.
Mohammadi said during a brief phone call on Sunday night that she does not know which security agency arrested her, the post on her X account said.
She added that she was beaten with batons during the arrest on Friday and has since been taken to the emergency room twice due to the severity of her injuries.
Mohammadi and several other activists were arrested during a heated gathering of mourners attending a memorial ceremony for Khosrow Alikordi in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
Alikordi, a former political prisoner who represented jailed protesters, was found dead under unclear circumstances in his office in Mashhad last week, with fellow lawyers and activists questioning the official account of cardiac arrest and alleging possible involvement by security forces.
"Khosrow Alikardi was devoted to freedom and justice, but he never bowed his head to oppression," Mohamadi told attendees in a speech.
The Nobel laureate whose arrest sparked international outcry said during the phone call that she was attacked with repeated, heavy baton blows to the head and neck and was then violently detained.
"At the same time as the beating, she was threatened and told, “We will put your mother in mourning.”
The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday condemned her arrest and called on Tehran to "specify Mohammadi’s place of detention, ensure her safety and well-being and release her unconditionally."
Her foundation posted online that activists Sepideh Qolian, Pouran Nazemi, Hasti Amiri and Aliyeh Motalebzadeh were also arrested, among others.
Mashhad governor Hassan Hosseini told state media that the arrests were made for the detainees' safety as the crowd turned unruly.
"This was done to protect them, because in such circumstances other groups might also take confrontational action. For this reason, the prosecutor’s office intervened to ensure that no problems would arise for these individuals," he told state media.
A study on female genital mutilation (FGM) in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province finds the practice is sustained chiefly by family dynamics, gender stereotypes and local customs that often outweigh religious mandates.
Published by researchers at Islamic Azad University, the peer-reviewed paper appears in Social Problems of Iran (Autumn 2025) and uses grounded-theory interviews with 15 women (2022–23) to map causal drivers, intervening factors, strategies, and outcomes.
The authors report that cutting persists within kinship networks that link family honor to control over female sexuality, while misinformation and limited access to alternative medical or religious views reinforce continuity.
“The central category indicates the impact of religious and family institutions in the continuation and reproduction of the traditional pattern,” the paper said, adding that “local customs outweigh religious mandates, with religion serving more as a legitimizing discourse.”
They say women’s responses evolve from silence and avoidance in childhood to negotiation, alliance-building and seeking medical advice in adulthood, with education, urbanization and social-media advocacy widening pathways to change.
Reported outcomes include physical pain, reduced sexual satisfaction, traumatic recall and social withdrawal. “FGM causes physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women.”
According to the paper, common misconceptions about the practice include beliefs that FGM preserves a girl’s “purity,” prevents immoral behavior or is a religious obligation.
“I had no idea what circumcision was until they did this to us,” said one 42-year-old participant.
Another woman described the experience as sudden and violent. “I was confused and completely unprepared. Like a chicken you grab to slaughter. Two female relatives held me down, tightly gripping my arms and legs, and then they took out the blade.”
FGM is practiced in several regions of Iran, particularly in western and southern provinces including Hormozgan, Kordestan, Kermanshah, West Azarbaijan, Ilam and Lorestan.
There is no comprehensive national data on its prevalence, but small-scale studies have reported varying rates across these areas.
The most common form documented in Iran is Type I FGM, involving partial or total removal of the clitoris or prepuce. Procedures are typically carried out by traditional midwives or elderly women using basic tools such as razor blades, often without anesthesia.
Iranian law does not explicitly criminalize FGM. There have been no known prosecutions, and official responses have largely been muted.
Iranian activist Masih Alinejad met Venezuelan Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado in Norway, saying in a post on social media that Tehran menaced the South American country too.
“The Islamic Republic has invaded Venezuela alongside its allies Russia and its proxy Hezbollah. To those who claim with outrage that Venezuela’s democratic opposition asked the US government to ‘invade,’ let’s be serious and deal in facts,” Alinejad wrote on X on Friday.
“The real and ongoing violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty is already happening. Iran’s regime, Hezbollah and their terrorist proxy networks are operating inside Venezuela, strengthening repression, corruption and criminal networks that serve dictators, not citizens,” she added.
Machado arrived in Oslo this week after her daughter accepted the Peace Prize on her behalf. The veteran opposition figure said the United States had facilitated her exit from Venezuela, where she had been living in hiding.
US forces have mounted the largest military buildup in the Caribbean since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The move appears to be a bid to pressure Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to resign after he declared victory in polls against Machado's allies last year even as pollsters found he had lost.
The administration of US President Donald Trump has been attacking alleged drug boats off Venezuela and in the Pacific, in strikes Democratic opponents and some human rights groups say violate the laws of war.
Trump and his military and legal leadership say the campaign is a legitimate operation against narco-terrorism led by Maduro, and US forces on Wednesday seized a tanker off Venezuela it said carried sanctioned Venezuelan and Iranian oil.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said on Wednesday that Iran was among various forces backing Maduro.
“Authoritarian regimes learn from each other. They share technology and propaganda systems. Behind Maduro stand Cuba, Russia, Iran, China and Hezbollah — providing weapons, surveillance and economic lifelines. They make the regime more robust, and more brutal,” its chief Jorgen Watne Frydnes said.
“Opposition groups did not start the imprisonments in Belarus, the executions in Iran — or the persecution in Venezuela. The violence comes from authoritarian regimes, as they lash out against popular calls for change,” Frydnes added.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio this month cast Venezuela as a regional launchpad for Iranian influence, describing Maduro’s government as a narcotics transit hub that hosts Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah
Little public evidence exists about the security relationship Venezuela has with Iran or its armed allies. Tehran and Caracas boosted ties under Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez, who cast himself as a bulwark against what he called American imperialism.
Machado said on Wednesday that their influence in Venezuela amounted to an invasion while not directly addressing whether she supported stepped up US military attacks on the country to bring about Maduro's downfall.
“Venezuela has already been invaded,” she said at a news conference alongside the Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store on Thursday.
“We have the Russian agents, we have the Iranian agents, we have terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, operating freely in accordance with the regime. We have the Colombian guerrillas, the drug cartels.”
Iranian authorities said on Saturday they had detained 39 people at a memorial ceremony for a prominent rights lawyer in the holy city of Mashhad, confirming the number of arrests after videos showed anti-government and pro-monarchy slogans at the gathering.
The detentions took place during a seventh-day memorial ceremony that drew activists and supporters, some of whom later gathered outside the venue and chanted slogans including “Death to the Dictator” and phrases backing Iran’s pre-1979 monarchy, according to videos posted online.
The memorial was held for Khosrow Alikordi, a prominent rights lawyer and former political prisoner who represented detained protesters. He was found dead in his office in Mashhad last week. Supporters and fellow lawyers have questioned the official account of his death, while Iranian authorities say forensic examinations show he died of a heart attack.
“The seventh-day memorial was held with full cooperation of the responsible bodies,” Mashhad public prosecutor Hassan Hemmati-Far said, adding that authorities allowed funeral and memorial ceremonies to go ahead in Mashhad and the nearby city of Sabzevar.
He said the situation changed after the ceremony ended, when a gathering formed outside the mosque. Hemmati-Far said Javad Alikordi, the lawyer’s brother, along with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi and activist Sepideh Gholian, addressed the crowd from atop a vehicle.
“By making provocative remarks, they encouraged those present to chant norm-breaking slogans and disrupt public order,” Hemmati-Far said.
Authorities said police later intervened to manage the scene and that two officers were injured. Hemmati-Far said the incident led to the detention of 39 people.
Families, activists dispute official account
Families of some detainees and rights activists have disputed the authorities’ account, saying those arrested were subjected to violence during detention and have since been held without contact with relatives or access to lawyers.
According to family members, several detainees, including Mohammadi, were beaten during arrest. Mohammadi’s brother, Hamidreza Mohammadi, told AFP she was “beaten on the legs and grabbed by the hair,” adding that her past medical conditions made her detention a serious concern.
“Immediate and full access to medical facilities must be provided, independent and impartial complaints must be registered against those responsible for beatings, threats and insults, and all injured detainees must be sent without delay to forensic medical authorities,” the Narges Mohammadi Foundation wrote in a statement.
Authorities also said Javad Alikordi later left the scene but was arrested hours afterward after posting videos online that officials described as containing false statements.
Hemmati-Far said all detainees were being held in a legal detention facility and that investigations were continuing.
Rights groups and activists say at least several dozen people remain in detention in what they described as incommunicado conditions. Iranian authorities deny wrongdoing and say detainees’ rights are being respected.
UN Special Rapporteur for Iran Mai Sato on Friday welcomed the release of an Iranian child bride who was on death row for killing her abusive husband, warning that the case exposes deep-rooted institutional injustices in Iran’s judicial system.
“The diyah (blood money) has been paid, but while we celebrate saving one life, we cannot ignore the institutional and structural injustices that brought Goli Kouhkan to the brink of death,” Sato said in a post on X.
Kouhkan, a 25-year-old Iranian woman and child marriage survivor who had been sentenced to death for killing her abusive husband, was spared after the victim’s family agreed to forgive her, the judiciary’s news agency reported on Tuesday.
“Goli was sold into marriage as a child and endured years of domestic violence in a country where such violence is not effectively criminalized,” Sato said.
Kouhkan comes from Iran's Baloch minority in the southeast, where poverty and traditional social practices pose serious challenges to women’s rights under the Islamic Republic.
She gave birth at home at 13 without medical care. Attempts to escape the marriage failed because of her undocumented status as a Baloch woman and the societal pressures she faced.
In May 2018, her husband beat both her and their five-year-old son. After a relative was called to intervene, a confrontation ensued that resulted in the husband’s death, according to UN experts who had urged Iran to halt the execution.
“Between 2010 and 2024, at least 241 women were executed in Iran. Notably, in 114 of these cases, the women convicted and executed for murder had killed their husband or partner. Many were victims of domestic violence, child marriage, or were acting in self-defense,” Sato said.
“The case gained widespread international attention, including in global media, but it raises the question: what happens to all the cases that never get heard?” she added.
In Iran, the legal marriage age for girls is 13, and even younger with a guardian’s and judge’s approval. Rights groups say girls and women have little protection from domestic violence, and face major obstacles when trying to divorce.
“The qisas (retribution) system, which conflicts with many international human rights standards, remains in place. We urgently need the complete abolition of the death penalty and protection for women’s rights,” Sato said.
Security forces detained Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi and several other activists during a memorial ceremony in the northeastern city of Mashhad, the local governor told state media.
The detentions occurred amid a heated gathering of mourners at a memorial service for Khosrow Alikordi, a prominent human rights lawyer whose recent death has drawn public anger and suspicion among his supporters of foul play.
Alikordi, a former political prisoner who represented jailed protesters, was found dead under unclear circumstances in his office in Mashhad last week, with fellow lawyers and activists questioning the official account of cardiac arrest and alleging possible involvement by security forces.
"Khosrow Alikardi was devoted to freedom and justice, but he never bowed his head to oppression," Narges told attendees in a speech.
"The people are standing here. We are all sisters and brothers. We are all Iranians. With one voice, in solidarity and unity, we say: by the blood of our fallen comrades, we will stand firm until the end," she said.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday condemned her arrest and called on Tehran to "specify Mohammadi’s place of detention, ensure her safety and well-being and release her unconditionally."
Mohammadi, according to videos circulated online, appeared to be heckled off stage by some attendees, who chanted slogans against the Islamic authorities and in favor of the country's pre-1979 ousted monarchy.
Her foundation posted online that activists Sepideh Qolian, Pouran Nazemi, Hasti Amiri and Aliyeh Motalebzadeh were also arrested, among others.
Mashhad governor Hassan Hosseini told state media that the arrests were made for the detainees' safety as the crowd turned unruly.
"This was done to protect them, because in such circumstances other groups might also take confrontational action. For this reason, the prosecutor’s office intervened to ensure that no problems would arise for these individuals," he told state media.
Javad Alikordi, the lawyer’s brother, said in an audio message that security forces beat Mohammadi and Gholian before taking them away. He said detainees were transferred to a detention facility linked to the intelligence arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in Mashhad.
It was not immediately possible for Iran International to verify his account.
Crackdown
Human Rights Watch decried the arrests and said they come "amid an intensified and full-fledged crackdown on dissent."
"Authorities must immediately and unconditionally release all individuals arrested in connection with exercising their human rights," the rights watchdog added on X.
Mohammadi, one of Iran’s most prominent human rights defenders, has repeatedly said she faces serious threats from Iranian security agencies. In August, she told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine that intelligence agents had issued direct and indirect death threats against her.
The chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said at the time that Mohammadi had warned her life was in danger, citing what she described as threats of “physical elimination” by state agents.
Mohammadi has accused Iranian authorities of intensifying pressure on civil society since the June ceasefire with Israel, saying repression of activists, journalists and critics has deepened.
Rights groups say Iran remains one of the world’s most restrictive environments for free expression, with activists frequently detained, prosecuted and imprisoned.
Mohammadi, who is serving a combined 13-year and nine-month prison sentence on national security charges, has been on medical furlough from Tehran’s Evin Prison. She has said she will not return voluntarily and that any re-arrest would amount to civil disobedience.