Iranian 2023 Nobel peace prize winner Narges Mohammadi, jailed since her latest arrest in December, has gone on hunger strike to demand her right to phone calls, her family's Paris-based lawyer has said.
Ms Mohammadi, who was arrested at a protest in the eastern city of Mashhad on 12 December, "has been on hunger strike for the last three days", lawyer Chirinne Ardakani told AFP.
"She is demanding her right to make a phone call, have access to her lawyers in Iran and to be visited," Ms Ardakani said.
She added that Ms Mohammadi's last phone call to her family dated back to 14 December and that they had been informed of the hunger strike by a detainee who had been released from prison.
Ms Mohammadi remains in solitary confinement in prison in Mashhad, where she had been arrested while speaking out against the authorities at a funeral ceremony for a lawyer whose death activists regard as suspicious, Ms Ardakani said.
"There is no means with which to communicate with her," she added.
Ms Mohammadi was arrested before protests erupted nationwide later in December. The movement peaked in January as authorities launched a crackdown that activists say has left thousands dead.
Supporters believe that the denial of phone calls is a deliberate attempt by the authorities to silence Ms Mohammadi, who has issued strong-worded statements even during previous stints in prison, and prevent her from commenting on the current situation.
Her foundation had said in a statement on Monday that she would only be allowed to make phone calls if she obeyed "rules" set by prosecutors, saying her legal right was being made "dependent on silence and self-censorship".
She won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her two-decade fight for human rights in the Islamic republic.
The 53-year-old strongly backed the 2022-2023 protests sparked by the death in custody of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini.
Ms Mohammadi has also regularly predicted the downfall of the clerical system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Her two twin children, who now live in Paris with her husband, received the Nobel prize in Oslo on her behalf in 2023. She has not seen them for over a decade.
Iranian authorities have arrested more than 50,000 people as part of their crackdown on protests, according to US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).
Among those arrested most recently were screenwriter Mehdi Mahmoudian, co-writer on Jafar Panahi's film "It was Just an Accident", which was nominated as best international picture at this year's Oscars and won the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 2025 Cannes festival.
Abdollah Momeni and women's rights activist Vida Rabbani were also detained in the same case after they signed a joint statement with over a dozen other activists condemning an "organised state crime against humanity" in the crackdown, according to Ms Mohammadi's foundation.
