An Iranian court sentenced Narges Mohammadi, winner of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, to six years in prison after her health deteriorated due to a hunger strike lasting nearly a week, her supporters said Sunday.

The 53-year-old human rights activist was arrested on December 12 in the northeastern city of Mashhad along with other activists, after speaking at a ceremony honoring a lawyer who was found dead.

"She was sentenced to six years in prison for gathering and collusion to commit crimes," her lawyer, Mostafa Nili, told AFP, adding that she was also banned from leaving the country for two years.

The activist was sentenced in another case to a year and a half in prison for "propaganda activities" and to two years of exile in the city of Khosf, in the eastern province of South Khorasan, the lawyer said.

Under Iranian law, prison sentences cannot be combined.

According to her foundation, she refused to explain herself before the judges and did not speak at her sentencing on Saturday.

"She considers this procedure to be nothing more than a farce," wrote her husband, Taghi Rahmani, who lives in Paris, in a statement.

She announced her conviction during a phone call to her lawyer, her second with the outside world since her arrest in December.

The activist began a hunger strike on February 2nd to protest her detention conditions and the ban on calling her lawyers and family.

- "Hospitalized" -

She "ended her hunger strike today (Sunday) on its sixth day, amid reports that her physical condition is deeply worrying," the foundation said.

Ms. Mohammadi told her lawyer that she had been hospitalized three days ago "due to her deteriorating health" before being sent back to a detention center, according to this source.

Over the past 25 years, Ms. Mohammadi has been repeatedly tried and imprisoned for her activism against the death penalty and the strict dress code for women in Iran.

She has spent much of the last decade behind bars and has not seen her two children, who live in Paris, since 2015.

In December 2024, she was released for three weeks for medical reasons, related to "her physical condition after the removal of a tumor and a bone graft", according to her lawyer.

Even behind bars, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate did not remain silent, organizing demonstrations in the prison yard and leading hunger strikes, and distinguished herself by defending the rights of political prisoners.

Born in 1972 in Zanjan, in northwestern Iran, Narges Mohammadi studied physics before becoming an engineer. She also pursued a career in journalism, working for reformist newspapers.

In the 2000s, she joined the Human Rights Defenders Center, founded by Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003.

Narges Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2023 for "her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and for the promotion of human rights and freedom for all".

Iran ranks second in the world for the number of executions after China, according to human rights groups, including Amnesty International.