Marges Mohammadi, Iran, and the Tall Poppy Syndrome.
But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations. C. S. Lewis
Our last blog, Maria Corina Machado, Venezuela, and the Tall Poppy Syndrome, recounted how Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize while in prison in her own countryside. This episode discusses a Prize winner while in actual prison. Today's blog follows the ancient meaning of the metaphor - cutting down the political opposition.
The Shah of Iran was overthrown on 11 February 1979, during the climax of the Iranian Revolution. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi had already left Iran for exile in mid-January 1979. The monarchy effectively fell when the armed forces declared neutrality and revolutionary forces took control on 11 February. This date is widely marked as the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty and the end of Iran’s monarchy.
The Islamic Republic of Iran was officially declared on 1 April 1979. After the overthrow of the Pahlavi monarchy, the new leadership organized a national referendum on the creation of an “Islamic Republic.” The referendum, held 30–31 March 1979, produced an overwhelming “yes” vote reportedly above 98 percent in favor of an Islamic republic.
On 1 April 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the revolutionary authorities proclaimed that Iran had become the “Islamic Republic of Iran,” treating this date as the official founding of the new state. Later that year, a new constitution was drafted and approved, consolidating the Islamic Republic's institutional framework under Khomeini as Supreme Leader.
The Islamic Republic of Iran systematically restricts women’s rights in law and practice across dress, family life, movement, work, and political participation. These restrictions are enforced through both formal legal mechanisms and informal violence and intimidation.
Women in Iran are subject to a mandatory hijab dress code, with “improper hijab” punishable by fines, arrest, and, increasingly, digital surveillance and denial of services. Laws and morality police practices have intensified since the 2022 protests following Mahsa Amini’s death in custody for alleged hijab violations. Women face discrimination in marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance, and travel: married women often need a husband’s permission to obtain a passport or travel abroad, and fathers are generally favored in custody disputes.
Women can vote and run for some elected offices, and there are female members of parliament and professionals. However, they are barred from the presidency and excluded from key positions in the judiciary and religious leadership. Candidate vetting by bodies like the Guardian Council and broader repression of dissent severely limit women’s effective political participation and organizing.
Women’s literacy and university participation are high, but the state imposes gender segregation in many spaces and has tried to channel women into “appropriate” fields and roles. Employment discrimination, restrictions in certain professions, and systemic harassment make economic independence difficult, even for educated women. Everyday life is marked by surveillance and policing of gender norms, with women activists, journalists, and protesters frequently facing arrest, torture, and long prison sentences for challenging laws on hijab or broader gender inequality.
Narges Mohammadi is an Iranian human rights activist, journalist, and leading feminist critic of the Islamic Republic, best known for opposing the oppression of women and the use of torture and the death penalty.
Mohammadi is the vice-president and spokesperson of the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran, an organization associated with Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi (a former Iranian lawyer and judge who became the first Iranian woman and Muslim to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003), which supports political prisoners and documents abuses. Her work has focused on women’s rights, prisoners’ rights, and campaigns against the death penalty and “white torture,” a form of psychological torture centered on solitary confinement and sensory deprivation.
Because of her activism, Mohammadi has been arrested repeatedly, sentenced in multiple trials, and held for years in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison on charges such as “propaganda against the state” and “colluding against national security.” She has been arrested more than a dozen times and sentenced to an aggregate of several decades in prison and dozens of lashes, yet has continued to write, organize, and report on abuse from inside prison, where she has spent more than 10 years.
In 2023, while still imprisoned, Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.” The Nobel Committee highlighted her long-standing defense of women, political prisoners, and ethnic minorities, and her symbolic role in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement that surged after the killing of Mahsa Jina Amini.
Mohammadi has spent years in a cycle of brief medical releases followed by re‑arrest, which the Iranian authorities use to manage her declining health while keeping her under constant pressure.
Because of serious health problems, including lung and neurological issues, she has repeatedly been granted short medical furloughs from Evin prison rather than a full, unconditional release. These “reprieves” are conditional and typically end with her being summoned back to prison or seized again after she continues activism or public criticism while outside prison. Her Nobel Peace Prize has not shielded her from renewed imprisonment.
Since 2021, she has been serving a 13-year sentence for charges of engaging in propaganda and collusion against the state. In December 2024, she was given a temporary release from prison on medical grounds for surgery.
On December 12, 2025, she attended and spoke at a memorial service in Hashhod, northeastern Iran, for Khosrow Alikordi, an attorney who was discovered dead in his office under suspicious circumstances. During her speech, security forces dispersed the crowd and attacked her by beating her with clubs and batons. She was detained along with several other high-profile human-rights activists.
Although the detaining authority is unknown, she has been charged with "cooperating with the Israeli government," and stated they made a death threat, "We will put your mother into mourning." She faced a similar threat earlier in the years, saying in July that "she had been directly and indirectly threatened with ‘physical elimination’ by agents of the regime.” She has been to the hospital emergency room twice for evaluations after her beating.
The 2025 Nobel Peace laureate, María Corina Machado, called for the “immediate and unconditional release of Narges Mohammadi and all others detained at the memorial.”
Machado and Mahammadi differ from the ancient cases of TPS in that political opposition was almost always men (see Gender as a Cutter in the Tall Poppy Syndrome). Both women exhibit courage, justice, fortitude, and service - traits found in most public TPs who enter the world of Tall Poppydom.
Tall Poppy Syndrome Newsletter
Join the newsletter to receive the latest updates in your inbox.
