Narges Mohammadi had been attending a ceremony for a lawyer who died last week. (Photo: AFP)

PARIS (FRANCE) - Iranian security forces on Friday detained the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi along with at least eight other activists in an arrest condemned as "brutal" by the Norwegian Nobel committee.

Mohammadi, who was granted temporary leave from prison in December 2024, was detained along with eight other activists at the ceremony for lawyer Khosrow Alikordi, who was found dead in his office last week, her foundation wrote on X.

Those arrested at the ceremony in the eastern city of Mashhad included Mohammadi’s fellow prominent activist Sepideh Gholian, who had previously been jailed alongside her in Tehran’s Evin prison.

"These individuals were present solely to pay their respects and express solidarity at a memorial ceremony," her foundation said, adding the arrests "constitute a blatant and serious violation of fundamental freedoms and basic human rights".

"Narges was beaten on the legs and she was held by her hair and dragged down," one of her brothers, Hamid Mohammadi, told AFP in Oslo where he lives.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it was "deeply concerned by today’s brutal arrest" of Mohammadi, calling on Iran to "immediately" clarify her whereabouts.

The arrest came two days after the ceremony in Oslo for the 2025 prize winner, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, a fierce critic of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro who is an ally of Tehran.

The Nobel committee said it "notes" the timing "given the close collaboration between the regimes in Iran and Venezuela".

Within Iran, the Mehr news agency cited the Mashhad governor Hassan Hosseini as saying the individuals were arrested at the ceremony after "chanting slogans deemed contrary to public norms" but did not name them.

• Slogans at funeral -

Alikordi, 45, was a lawyer who had defended clients in sensitive cases, including people arrested in a crackdown on nationwide protests that erupted in 2022.

His body was found on December 5, with rights groups calling for an investigation into his death, which Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said "had very serious suspicion of a state murder".

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) posted footage of Mohammadi, who was not wearing the headscarf women are obliged to wear in public in the Islamic republic, attending the ceremony with a crowd of other supporters of Alikordi.

It said they shouted slogans including "Long live Iran," "We fight, we die, we accept no humiliation" and "Death to the dictator" at the ceremony which, in line with Islamic tradition, marked seven days since Alikordi’s death.

Other footage broadcast by Persian-language television channels based outside Iran showed Mohammadi climbing on top of a vehicle with a microphone and encouraging people to chant slogans.

"When peaceful citizens cannot mourn without being beaten and dragged away, it reveals a government terrified of truth and accountability. It also reveals the extraordinary bravery of Iranians who refuse to surrender their dignity," said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran.

• Years behind bars -

Mohammadi, 53, who was last arrested in November 2021, has spent much of the past decade behind bars.

Her two twin children received the Nobel prize in Oslo on her behalf in 2023, and she has now not seen them for 11 years. Her temporary release in December 2024 was allowed on health grounds after problems related to her lungs and other issues.

"In the prison, she had lots of complications. Her lungs, her heart, she has had some operations," said Hamid Mohammadi.

"I’m not worried that she is arrested. She’s been arrested a lot of times, but what worries me most is that they will put a lot of pressure on her physical and psychological condition. And it might lead to again experiencing those complications," he added.

Mohammadi has also regularly predicted the downfall of the clerical system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, saying in a 19th birthday message to her twins last month that "they (the authorities) themselves live each day in fear of the fall that will inevitably come at the hands of the people of Iran".