The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) strongly condemns the violent arrest of Iranian human rights defender and 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, who was detained on 12 December 2025 by plainclothes security forces in the city of Mashhad, according to eyewitnesses.

Mohammadi was arrested while attending the seventh-day memorial ceremony (shown in the photo above) for the late lawyer Khosrow Alikordi, just one year after her release from prison. Witnesses reported that security forces acted violently during her detention.

In the same incident, photojournalist Alieh Motalebzadeh and three other human rights defenders were also arrested. Their current whereabouts and legal status remain unknown at the time of writing.

Narges Mohammadi has already spent more than 10 years of her life in prison due to her peaceful human rights work, including her advocacy against the death penalty, torture, and the systemic repression of women in Iran.

Both the European Union and the Nobel Peace Centre have protested the arrest of Mohammadi and other human rights defenders and called for their release.

GCHR considers the arrest of Mohammadi and the other detainees to be a clear violation of Iran’s international human rights obligations, including the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and association.

Recommendations

GCHR calls on the Iranian authorities to:

1. Immediately and unconditionally release Narges Mohammadi and all other individuals arrested in connection with this incident;
2. End the ongoing harassment, intimidation, and arbitrary detention of human rights defenders, journalists, and civil society actors;
3. Guarantee the safety and physical integrity of all detainees.

GCHR urges the international community, including United Nations mechanisms and diplomatic missions, to closely monitor the situation and take urgent action to protect human rights defenders in Iran.