Iranian human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi began a hunger strike from her Tehran prison cell Monday, protesting the Iranian authorities’ alleged negligence towards sick inmates and the criminalization of women who refuse to wear the hijab.

The 51-year-old is currently serving multiple prison sentences in Tehran’s Evin Prison, amounting to nearly 12 years of incarceration. She has been subject to a series of prison sentences since 1998, linked to her work with the Defenders of Human Rights Centre. She had been released in October 2020, after serving eight years of a previous sentence, but she was subsequently rearrested on propaganda and defamation charges. These charges included her nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, which was deemed to be “espionage for a hostile state.”

Mohammadi was hospitalized in 2022, due to heart and lung conditions, and underwent emergency surgery. She was briefly released on medical furlough but later returned to prison. According to her family, she was due to have a medical appointment with a heart specialist on October 12, but her refusal to wear the hijab meant that the visit was canceled by prison authorities.

Mohammadi has been vocal throughout her prison terms and has advocated for the rights of prisoners. As per her family’s account on Twitter, the hunger strike is in direct protest of the “Islamic Republic’s policy of delaying and neglecting medical care for sick inmates, resulting in the loss of the health and lives of individuals” and the “policy of ‘death’ or ‘mandatory hijab’ for Iranian women.”