Iranian authorities are refusing to release Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi from prison to attend her father’s funeral, Iran International can reveal.

A source close to the family said the burial of Karim Mohammadi is being delayed in the hope that the human rights activist may still receive permission to attend in time.

Her father died aged 90 on Tuesday having been stopped from visiting Narges for the past 22 months.

In an attempt to increase pressure on the human rights activist, Iran’s judiciary had denied her any phone contact with his ailing father over the past three months.

A group of Mohammadi’s inmates in notorious Evin Prison have launched a sit-in protest against the Islamic Republic’s decision not to give leave to the Nobel peace prize laureate.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the female civil and political activists lambasted the Iranian regime’s continuous pressures on Narges Mohammadi and celebrated her defiant resistance.

The statement called for the government to release Mohammadi unconditionally so that she can mourn her father, adding that the regime’s refusal to do so shows its deliberate attempt to torment prisoners.

Born in 1972 in Zanjan, Narges Mohammadi became politically active at university. She has received several international awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran” and the Sakharov Prize from the American Physical Society in 2018.

She has so far spent 12 years in jail as the Iranian authorities attempt to suppress her human rights activities. She was last arrested in 2021 and has been in Evin Prison since then. Last month she was given a further 15-month sentence accused of spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic while in jail.