Iranian Nobel laureate boycotts latest trial: family

Jailed Iranian Nobel Peace laureate Narges Mohammadi refused to appear on Tuesday at her first trial hearing since the award ceremony, describing the court as a "slaughterhouse", her family said.

Mohammadi, whose family accepted the 2023 prize in Oslo on her behalf on December 10, said the revolutionary court where she is being tried is responsible for ordering death sentences for young Iranians.

"The revolutionary court is the slaughterhouse of the youth of Iran, and I will not set foot in this slaughterhouse," she said in a statement published by her family on her Instagram account

"I refuse to grant credibility or authority to judges affiliated with secret services and courts that engage in staged trials," she added.

The charges in the trial were not immediately clear but are believed to be related to her activities behind bars in Tehran's Evin prison where she has defiantly campaigned against Iran's Islamic authorities and the mandatory dress code for women.

She has also repeatedly denounced Iran's use of the death penalty which has seen hundreds of people executed this year.

Eight men have been executed in cases related to the protests that erupted in September 2022 and were sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini. The movement was strongly supported by Mohammadi from prison.

Her family has said that if convicted in the latest case, she risked being told to serve her sentence in a prison outside the Iranian capital.

Mohammadi, 51, has spent much of the past two decades in and out of jail. She began serving her most recent sentence in November 2021.

The family said this will be the third trial Mohammadi has faced related to her activities in prison.

In the two previous cases, she was sentenced to 27 months in prison and four months of street sweeping and social work.

During the past two decades, Mohammadi has been arrested 13 times, and sentenced five times to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes.

Mohammadi's twins picked up the prize on her behalf © Fredrik Varfjell / NTB/AFP

The family confirmed that Mohammadi -- who has not seen her Paris-based husband and children for several years -- remains deprived of the right to make phone calls.

She has not spoken to her twin 17-year-old children -- who accepted the Nobel prize on her behalf -- for almost two years.

© 2023 AFP