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Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi Says She Is Permanently Barred from Leaving Iran

Narges Mohammadi, awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize for her human rights work, says she has been permanently banned from leaving Iran. She revealed the restriction in a birthday message to her 19-year-old twins, who live in Paris and whom she has not seen for 11 years. Released on medical leave in December after more than three years in prison, Mohammadi faces the constant threat of re-arrest while remaining a prominent critic of Iran's clerical leadership.

04:15 AM, 11/28/2025Politics
Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi Says She Is Permanently Barred from Leaving Iran

Narges Mohammadi, the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, says she has been "permanently" banned from leaving Iran, a restriction she announced in a birthday message to her 19-year-old twins whom she has not seen in more than a decade.

Mohammadi, 53, spent more than three years in prison before being released in December on a limited medical leave. Her legal team has warned she remains at risk of re-arrest and could be returned to custody at any time.

Addressing her children, Kiana and Ali Rahmani, Mohammadi said she had tried to obtain a passport to travel to them. "I applied for a passport so I could come to you," she said, adding that the authorities have "issued and enforced two types of travel bans, including a 'permanent travel ban.'"

Kiana and Ali live in Paris with their father and with Mohammadi's husband, activist Taghi Rahmani, who has also faced long periods behind bars. The twins collected Mohammadi's Nobel Prize in Oslo in 2023 because she could not attend.

Mohammadi won the Nobel Prize in recognition of roughly two decades of human rights activism and her outspoken support for the 2022–2023 protests sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini. She has spent much of the past decade in detention and was last arrested in November 2021.

Outside detention, Mohammadi has continued to challenge Iran's authorities: in international video appearances she has sometimes refused to wear the mandatory headscarf and has repeatedly predicted that the clerical system that has governed Iran since the 1979 revolution will eventually fall.

It is not immediately clear when or under what legal basis the travel bans described by Mohammadi were imposed. Her legal team says the situation remains precarious and that she could be summoned back to detention at any time.

"The Islamic republic has stamped the word 'permanent' on our documents," Mohammadi said, adding that officials "live each day in fear of the fall that will inevitably come at the hands of the people of Iran."

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