Women’s rights activist Mohammadi was arrested in December while attending a memorial ceremony in Mashhad.
Published On 8 Feb 20268 Feb 2026
Share
Iranian human rights activist and 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison, according to her lawyers and a group that supports her.
Mohammadi, 53, was on a week-long hunger strike that ended on Sunday, the Narges Foundation said in a statement. It said Mohammadi told her lawyer, Mostafa Nili, in a phone call on Sunday from prison that she had received her sentence on Saturday.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
“She has been sentenced to six years in prison for gathering and collusion to commit crimes,” Nili told the AFP news agency.
She was also handed a one-and-a-half-year prison sentence for propaganda activities and is to be exiled for two years to the city of Khosf in the eastern province of South Khorasan, the lawyer added.
She also received a two-year ban on leaving the country, according to the report.
Nili said the verdict was not final and could be appealed, expressing hope that the activist could be temporarily “released on bail to receive treatment,” due to her health issues.
Mohammadi had on February 2 begun a hunger strike to protest the conditions of her imprisonment and the inability to make phone calls to lawyers and family.
“Narges Mohammadi ended her hunger strike today on its 6th day, while reports indicate her physical condition is deeply alarming,” the foundation said.
Mohammadi told Nili she was transferred to the hospital just three days ago “due to her deteriorating health”, it added.
“However, she was returned to the Ministry of Intelligence’s security detention centre in Mashhad before completing her treatment,” the foundation said.
“Her continued detention is life threatening and a violation of human rights laws.”
Mohammadi is the second Iranian woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize after Shirin Ebadi won the award in 2003 for her efforts to promote democracy and human rights.
A prominent writer and journalist, Mohammadi serves as deputy director of the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC), an organisation long dedicated to defending political prisoners and promoting broader human rights reforms in Iran. Beyond her advocacy for gender equality, she campaigns vigorously against the death penalty and corruption.
Her 20-year fight for women’s rights made her a symbol of freedom, the Nobel Committee said in 2023.
Mohammadi was arrested on December 12 after denouncing the suspicious death of lawyer Khosrow Alikordi.
Prosecutor Hasan Hematifar told reporters then that Mohammadi made provocative remarks at Alikordi’s memorial ceremony in the northeastern city of Mashhad and encouraged those present “to chant norm-breaking slogans” and “disturb the peace”.
Oakland civil rights attorney James Cook has been on the ground in Minnesota for months figuring out answers to these question as he goes.
A fast-talking Minneapolis native who still lives in the Twin Cities part time, Cook is one of a handful of attorneys who have dropped everything to aid (for free) those caught up in the federal crackdown — protesters, immigrants and detained citizens — too many of whom have found themselves facing deportation, arrest or even been disappeared, at least for a time.
Civil rights attorney James Cook in the rear view mirror as he makes phone calls in his car in Minneapolis.
(Caroline Yang/For The Times)
“They are leaders that are on the ground really helping people through this process,” Minnesota school board member Chauntyll Allen told me.
She’s one of the protesters arrested inside a local church, charged with conspiracy to deprive others of their constitutional rights by Pam Bondi’s politicized Department of Justice, which also Friday arrested journalist Don Lemon for the same incident. Cook is one of the lawyers now representing Allen.
“It shows us that the judicial arm, or some of the judicial arm of our democracy, is willing to step up and ensure that our democracy stands strong,” Allen said of Cook and others like him.
While it’s the images of clashes in the streets that captivate media and audiences, it’s lawyers like Cook who are fighting an existential battle in the background to preserve the rule of law in a place where it is increasing opaque, to put it gently.
The legal work behind detentions has largely been an overlooked battlefield that will likely rage on years after ICE departs the streets, leaving in its wake hundreds if not thousands of long-and-winding court cases.
Beyond the personal fates they will determine, the outcome of the civil litigation Cook and others are spearheading will likely force whatever transparency and accountability can be pulled from these chaotic and troubling times.
It’s time-consuming and complicated work vital not just to people, but history.
Or, as Cook puts it, “I’ll be 10 years older when all this s— resolves.”
Federal agents stand guard against a growing wall of protesters on Jan. 24 in Minneapolis, just hours after Alex Pretti was shot by federal agents.
(Caroline Yang/For The Times)
Cook told me this while on his way to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building where some detainees are being held, maybe. It’s hard to find out. A few years ago, when immigration enforcement in Minnesota ramped up under the first Trump term, activists tried to get the name of the building changed, arguing Whipple, the first Protestant Episcopal bishop in the state, had been an advocate of the marginalized and wouldn’t want his name associated with what the feds were up to.
Cook is well aware that the guns carried by the federal agents are not for show, even without the Boss’ new ballad. Just a few days ago, one of the first times he drove his beat-up truck up to the gate, the federal guards at Whipple pointed their guns at him.
“I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m going to take my keys out of the ignition, drop them on the ground. So please don’t shoot,’” he said.
They lowered the guns, but Cook was scared, a feeling that doesn’t come easy.
Long before his law degree, when he was a punk-rock loving teen in the 1980s, fresh out of Southwest High, the public school not too far from Whipple, a former coach convinced him to give up college dreams and instead pursue a shot at making the first Muay Thai kickboxing team at the Olympics.
The martial art ended up not making it as an official Olympic sport, but the experience launched Cook into a professional boxing and kickboxing career that took him to competitions around the world, and taught him fear is not a reason to back down.
But, “Father Time is undefeated,” Cook said. “I got older and I started losing fights, and I was like, all right, time to get back to life.”
That eventually led him to obtaining a law degree in San Francisco, where after an intern stint as a public defender, he decided he wanted to be a trial attorney, fighting in court.
Civil rights attorney James Cook has been doing pro bono immigration work since the crackdown began in Minneapolis.
(Caroline Yang/For The Times)
He started cold-calling John Burris, another Bay Area lawyer who is an icon of civil rights and police misconduct cases. Burris, who has been called the “Godfather of Police Litigation,” was involved in the “Oakland Riders” case in 2000, when officers were discovered to have planted evidence. He also represented Rodney King, the family of Oscar Grant, and the family of Joseph Mann among many others.
But Burris, a boxing fan, didn’t respond to Cook’s calls until the young lawyer offered him free tickets to one of his fights, which he was still doing on the side.
“And then immediately I got a call back,” Cook said.
Burris said Cook’s history as a fighter intrigued him, but “I did say to James, you can’t be a fighter and lawyer. You can’t get punched in your head all the time.”
Cook did not take this advice.
Still, Burris said, “It was his persistence that I admired, because the type of work we’re involved in, you need people who are dedicated, who have some real commitment to the work, and he showed that kind of consistency and dedication.”
Cook’s been working with Burris more than 20 years now, but until recently, the labyrinth of the immigration system wasn’t his area of expertise. It’s been a crash course for him, he said, on the often arcane laws that govern who gets to stay in America and who doesn’t.
It’s also been a crash course on what a civil rights emergency looks like. Along with his work looking for locked-up immigrants, Cook spends a lot of time on the streets at protests, helping people understand their rights — and limitations — and seeing first hand what is happening.
“If you ever wondered what you would have done in Germany, now is the time,” he said. “Now is the time to do something. People are being interned.”
In the hours after Pretti was shot, Cook was at the location of the shooting, in the middle of the tear gas, offering legal help to anyone who needed it and bearing witness to conduct that will almost certainly face scrutiny one day, even if government leaders condone it now.
Law enforcement officers launch tear gas canisters as they work to push the crowd back and expand their perimeter in Minneapolis on Jan. 24.
(Caroline Yang/For The Times)
“The way the officers chase people down, protesters who were really just protesting lawfully and were beaten and pepper sprayed and gassed — all those are civil rights violations,” Burris said. “And so the law is the guardrails. So there has to be lawyers who are prepared to protect those guardrails and to stand as centurions, as I refer to us.”
Cook has tried to calm protesters, he told me, and prevent clashes. But people are mad, and resolute. His greatest fear is summer — when warm weather could bring even larger crowds if enforcement is still ongoing. He’s worried that the actions of the federal agents will spill over into anger at local cops enforcing local laws, leading to even more chaos.
“I’ve always supported cops as long as they do their job correctly,” Cook said.
For now, he’s taking it one day at a time, one case at a time, one name at a time.
Protesters raise an inverted American flag as law enforcement officers launch tear gas canisters in Minneapolis after Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents.
(Caroline Yang/For The Times)
Tuesday, Cook passed through the armed checkpoint at Whipple carrying a list of about seven people, folks who have been picked up by federal agents for one reason or another, or reasons unknown, and now cannot be located. They are not in the public online system that is meant to track detainees, and family and friends have not heard from them.
If he’s lucky, Cook will get information on one or two, that they are indeed inside, or maybe at a detention center in Texas, where many have been sent. But there will be more whose location remains unknown. He’ll make calls, fill out forms and come back tomorrow. And the tomorrow after that.
“This is what we do,” he said. “I’m always in it for the long run. I mean, you know, shoot, yeah, that’s kind of the way it works.”
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis resident killed Saturday by Border Patrol officers, federal officials said Friday.
“We’re looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to what happened,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said during a news conference. “That’s like any investigation that the Department of Justice and the FBI does every day. It means we’re looking at video, talking to witnesses, trying to understand what happened.”
There are thousands of instances every year when someone is shot by law enforcement, Blanche said, but not all are investigated by federal authorities.
“There has to be circumstances or facts or maybe unknown facts, but certainly circumstances, that warrant an investigation,” he added.
The Department of Homeland Security also said Friday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation will lead the federal probe.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem first disclosed the shift in which agency was leading the probe during a Fox News interview Thursday evening. Her department said earlier this week that Homeland Security Investigations, a unit within the department, would be heading the investigation.
“We will continue to follow the investigation that the FBI is leading and giving them all the information that they need to bring that to conclusion, and make sure that the American people know the truth of the situation and how we can go forward and continue to protect the American people,” Noem said, speaking to Fox host Sean Hannity.
Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin confirmed Friday that the FBI will lead the Pretti probe and that HSI will support them. Separately, Customs and Border Protection, which is part of DHS, is doing its own internal investigation into the shooting, during which two officers opened fire on Pretti.
DHS did not immediately respond to questions about when the change was made or why. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It was also not immediately clear whether the FBI would now share information and evidence with Minnesota state investigators, who have thus far been frozen out of the federal probe.
In the same interview, Noem appeared to distance herself from statements she made shortly after the shooting, claiming Pretti had brandished a handgun and aggressively approached officers.
Multiple videos that emerged of the shooting contradicted that claim, showing the intensive care nurse had only his mobile phone in his hand as officers tackled him to the ground, with one removing a handgun from the back of Pretti’s pants as another officer began firing shots into his back.
Pretti had a state permit to legally carry a concealed firearm. At no point did he appear to reach for it, the videos showed.
“I know you realize that situation was very chaotic, and that we were being relayed information from on the ground from CBP agents and officers that were there,” Noem said during the interview with Hannity on Thursday. “We were using the best information we had at the time, seeking to be transparent with the American people and get them what we knew to be true on the ground.”
The change comes after two other videos emerged Wednesday of an earlier altercation between Pretti and federal immigration officers 11 days before his death.
The Jan. 13 videos show Pretti in a winter coat, yelling at federal vehicles and at one point appearing to spit before kicking out the taillight of one vehicle. A struggle ensues between Pretti and several officers, during which he is forced to the ground. Pretti’s winter coat comes off, and he either breaks free or the officers let him go and he scurries away.
When he turns his back to the camera, what appears to be a handgun is visible in his waistband. At no point do the videos show Pretti reaching for the gun, and it is not clear whether federal agents saw it.
Steve Schleicher, a Minneapolis-based attorney representing Pretti’s parents, said Wednesday the earlier altercation in no way justified officers fatally shooting Pretti more than a week later.
In a post on his Truth Social platform early Friday morning, President Trump suggested that the videos of the earlier incident undercut the narrative that Pretti was a peaceful protester when he was shot.
“Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces,” Trump’s post said. “It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances!”
Biesecker and Santana write for the Associated Press. AP reporters Alanna Durkin Richer and Eric Tucker contributed to this report from Washington.
A 2024 simulation found US civil war could be triggered by clashes between state and federal law enforcement.
US federal immigration raids continue in Minnesota, and the operation has set the stage for a standoff between state officials and the federal government. Governor Tim Walz has readied Minnesota’s national guard, while the Pentagon has ordered troops to be on standby. A 2024 University of Pennsylvania simulation warned that similar state-federal standoffs could escalate into broader armed conflict.
In this episode:
Claire Finkelstein (@COFinkelstein), Center for Ethics and Rule of Law, University of Pennsylvania
Episode credits:
This episode was produced by Chloe K. Li and Melanie Marich, with Phillip Lanos, Spencer Cline, Tamara Khandaker, Sonia Bhagat and our guest host, Manuel Rapalo. It was edited by Kylene Kiang.
The Take production team is Marcos Bartolomé, Sonia Bhagat, Spencer Cline, Sarí el-Khalili, Tamara Khandaker, Kylene Kiang, Phillip Lanos, Chloe K. Li, Melanie Marich, and Noor Wazwaz. Our host is Malika Bilal.
Our engagement producers are Adam Abou-Gad and Vienna Maglio. Andrew Greiner is lead of audience engagement.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
