Pooran Nazemi, an Iranian human rights defender, civil rights activist and long-standing advocate for women, children and families seeking justice, has been engaged in grassroots mobilisation and human rights work in the south of Kerman Province, Iran since at least 2005. She has worked with marginalised religious groups, political prisoners and disadvantaged rural communities affected by environmental and social exclusion, including through women’s capacity-building efforts and basic services such as water sanitation. As a result of her activism, the authorities seized her land and in October 2023 the Jiroft Revolutionary Court charged her with serious offences including “insulting the sacred principles of Islam,” “waging war against God” and “corruption on Earth,” charges which carry the death penalty under the Islamic Penal Code. During the Woman, Life, Freedom protest movement and the escalating repression that followed in late 2025, Pooran Nazemi and other civil society actors continued to be targeted by security forces. On 12 December 2025, she was violently arrested in Mashhad alongside other prominent human rights defenders, journalists and activists while attending a memorial for the late human rights lawyer Khosrow Alikordi, with eyewitnesses reporting security forces employing force against detainees. The mass arrests occurred amid a severe nationwide crackdown involving internet shutdowns and widespread arbitrary detentions aimed at suppressing independent documentation of human rights violations. Both local and international observers have raised serious concerns about Nazemi’s health, given her reported poor condition following repeated detentions, the opaque nature of legal proceedings against her and her restricted access to legal counsel and family contact while in custody.