DUBAI — Iran sentenced imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi to over seven more years behind bars after she began a hunger strike, supporters said Sunday, as Tehran cracks down on all dissent following nationwide protests and the deaths of thousands at the hands of security forces.
The new convictions against Mohammadi come as Iran tries to negotiate with the United States over its nuclear program to avert a threatened military strike by President Trump. Iran’s top diplomat declared Sunday that Tehran’s strength came from its ability to “say no to the great powers,” striking a maximalist position just after negotiations in Oman with the U.S.
Mohammadi’s supporters cited her lawyer, who spoke to Mohammadi. The lawyer, Mostafa Nili, confirmed the sentence on X, saying it had been handed down Saturday by a Revolutionary Court in the city of Mashhad. Such courts typically issue verdicts with little or no opportunity for defendants to contest their charges.
“She has been sentenced to six years in prison for ‘gathering and collusion’ and one and a half years for propaganda and two-year travel ban,” Nili wrote. She received two more years of internal exile to the city of Khosf, some 460 miles southeast of Tehran, the lawyer added.
Iran did not immediately acknowledge the sentence. Supporters say Mohammadi has been on a hunger strike since Feb. 2. After she was furloughed in December 2024 for medical reasons, she was rearrested in December 2025 at a ceremony honoring Khosrow Alikordi, an Iranian lawyer and human rights advocate who had been based in Mashhad. Video from the demonstration showed her shouting, demanding justice for Alikordi and others.
A symbol of Iranian dissent
Mohammadi, now 53, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023, while imprisoned, for her many years of campaigning for women’s rights in the Islamic Republic.
Supporters had warned for months before her December arrest that she was at risk of being put back in prison. Her medical furlough was initially to be for three weeks, but her time out of prison lengthened, possibly on account of activists and Western powers pushing Iran to keep her free. She remained out even during the 12-day war in June between Iran and Israel.
Mohammadi kept up her activism with public protests and international media appearances, including even demonstrating in front of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, where she had been held.
Mohammadi had been serving 13 years and nine months on charges of collusion against state security and propaganda against Iran’s government. She also had backed the nationwide protests sparked by the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, which saw women openly defy the government by not wearing the hijab.
Mohammadi suffered multiple heart attacks while imprisoned before undergoing emergency surgery in 2022, her supporters say. Her lawyer in late 2024 revealed that doctors had found a bone lesion that they feared could be cancerous that later was removed.
“Considering her illnesses, it is expected that she will be temporarily released on bail so that she can receive treatment,” Nili wrote.
But Iranian officials have been signaling a harder line against all dissent since the recent demonstrations. Speaking on Sunday, Iranian judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei suggested harsh prison sentences awaited many.
“Look at some individuals who once were with the revolution and accompanied the revolution,” he said, referring to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. “Today, what they are saying, what they are writing, what statements they issue, they are unfortunate, they are forlorn [and] they will face damage.”
Foreign minister strikes hard-line tone
The news about Mohammadi came as Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to diplomats at a summit in Tehran, signaled that Iran would stick to its position that it must be able to enrich uranium — a major point of contention with the United States, which bombed Iranian atomic sites in June during the 12-day Iran-Israel war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to travel to Washington this week, with Iran expected to be the major subject of discussion, his office said.
While Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian praised the talks Friday in Oman with the Americans as “a step forward,” Araghchi’s remarks show the challenge ahead. Already, the U.S. moved the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, ships and warplanes to the Middle East to pressure Iran into an agreement and have the firepower necessary to strike the Islamic Republic should Trump choose to do so.
“I believe the secret of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s power lies in its ability to stand against bullying, domination and pressures from others,” Araghchi said. “They fear our atomic bomb, while we are not pursuing an atomic bomb. Our atomic bomb is the power to say no to the great powers. The secret of the Islamic Republic’s power is in the power to say no to the powers.”
‘Atomic bomb’ as rhetorical device
Araghchi’s choice to explicitly use “atomic bomb” as a rhetorical device probably wasn’t accidental. While Iran has long maintained its nuclear program is peaceful, the West and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Tehran had an organized military program to seek the bomb up until 2003.
Iran more recently had been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step to weapons-grade levels of 90%, the only non-weapons state to do so. Iranian officials in recent years had also been increasingly threatening that the Islamic Republic could seek the bomb, even while its diplomats have pointed to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s statments as a binding fatwa, or religious edict, that Iran wouldn’t build one.
Pezeshkian, who ordered Araghchi to pursue talks with the U.S. after likely getting Khamenei’s blessing, wrote on X on Sunday about the talks.
“The Iran-U.S. talks, held through the follow-up efforts of friendly governments in the region, were a step forward,” the president wrote. “Dialogue has always been our strategy for peaceful resolution. … The Iranian nation has always responded to respect with respect, but it does not tolerate the language of force.”
It remains unclear when and where, or if, there will be a second round of talks. Trump, after the talks Friday, offered few details but said: “Iran looks like they want to make a deal very badly — as they should.”
U.S. military presence
During Friday’s talks, U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the military’s Central Command, was in Oman. Cooper’s presence was apparently an intentional reminder to Iran about U.S. military power in the region. Cooper later accompanied U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, to the Lincoln out in the Arabian Sea after the indirect negotiations.
Araghchi appeared to be taking the threat of an American military strike seriously, as many worried Iranians have in recent weeks. He noted that after multiple rounds of talks last year, the U.S. “attacked us in the midst of negotiations.”
“If you take a step back [in negotiations], it is not clear up to where it will go,” Araghchi said.
Gambrell writes for the Associated Press.
The post Iran sentences Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi to 7 more years in prison appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
