DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A campaign urging Iran to free Nobel Peace Prize laureate said Monday that the activist has begun a hunger strike over the conditions of her imprisonment and the country’s requirement that women wear headscarves.
The Free Narges Mohammadi campaign said she “through a message from Evin Prison has informed her family that she started a hunger strike several hours ago.” It said Mohammadi and her lawyer for weeks have sought her transfer to a specialist hospital for heart and lung care.
It did not elaborate on what conditions Mohammadi suffered from, though it described her as receiving an echocardiogram of her heart.
Iranian state media did not immediately acknowledge that Mohammadi had gone on a hunger strike.
Mohammadi, 51, has kept up her activism despite numerous arrests by Iranian authorities and spending years behind bars. She has remained a leading light for nationwide, women-led protests sparked by the death last year of a 22-year-old woman in police custody that have grown into one of the most intense challenges to Iran’s theocratic government.
That woman, Mahsa Amini, had been detained for allegedly not wearing her headscarf, or hijab, to the liking of authorities.
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