The 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi, considers the early presidential elections on June 28 “illegal.”
The 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi, considers the early presidential elections on June 28 “illegal.”
The statements of the 51-year-old activist, detained in Evin prison in Tehran since 2021, came five days after a court in the Iranian capital increased her prison sentence by another year for calling for an electoral boycott in The elections. March legislative elections.
“I will not participate in the illegal elections organized by the oppressive and illegitimate Government of the Islamic Republic,” Mohammadi said in a statement released by his family.
“How can they wield a sword, a gallows, weapons and prisons against the people with one hand and a ballot box with the other and falsely call it an election?” asked the activist.
The winner of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize stated that the objective of the elections is to “consolidate the power and tyranny” of a “regime that believes in repression, terror and violence to remain in power.”
“These elections will not give legitimacy to the Islamic Republic,” he said.
Mohammadi has been sentenced six times since 2021 to a total of 13 years and three months in prison and 154 lashes, among other penalties.
Iran will hold early presidential elections following the death of ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, along with Foreign Minister Hosein Amir Abdolahian and six others, on May 19.
The elections will take place in a context of strong public discontent due to the poor economic situation and social repression, especially against women, with the new campaign to reimpose the use of the veil, which threatens to cause a low participation rate.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has always attached great importance to participation in elections as a sign of its legitimacy and popular support.
The parliamentary elections in March recorded the lowest participation rate in the Islamic Republic’s last 45 years, with only 41% of the electorate going to the polls.
Six candidates are competing for the presidency, among them the leader Mohamad Baqer Qalibaf, president of Parliament, the ultra-conservative Saeed Jalili and the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian, the latter loyal to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to the activist Taghi Rahmani’s husband told the Portuguese press. agency.
The Iranian activist was also in Lisbon on Thursday to present the book “White Torture”, written by the woman, and which recounts the experiences of 13 other women, in addition to the author herself, in the “infamous prisons” of Iran. where they are, she says, were victims of “cruel humiliation, harassment and beatings, total isolation, without medical assistance, exhausting interrogations and severely punitive punishments.”
In statements to Lusa, Rahmani considered that the woman should be released and that the one-year increase in the prison sentence “is unfounded.”
“It’s a crime. But the word is stronger than “crime.” “The increase in the prison sentence by one more year, after having increased it by two years last January, does not take into account the law and has no basis,” said Rahmani, speaking in Farsi, whose words will be translated into Portuguese. . by an Iranian citizen residing in Portugal.
The activist received the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and for the promotion of human rights and freedom for all.”
The full interview given by Narges Mohgammadi’s husband will be published on Sunday morning in Lusa.
Source: Observadora
