TEHRAN — Jailed Iranian human rights activist and journalist Narges

Mohammadi, who suffers from a lung condition, has requested temporary

release from prison for medical treatment, her lawyer told AFP Saturday.

Mahmoud Behzadi-Rad said he was also preparing a new parole application

for Mohammadi, a previous request having been denied in late 2019.

But the activist faced new legal proceedings and was "under investigation" as
part of a dossier with unspecified contents, for which no "indictment has...yet
been issued", he said.

Since March, more than 100,000 detainees in Iran have been granted
temporary release or sentence remissions to help limit the spread of the novel
coronavirus in the Islamic republic's prisons.

Mohammadi, 48, is a campaigner against the death penalty and was the
spokeswoman for the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran – founded by
lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi – when she was arrested
in May 2015.

The mother-of-two is serving a 10-year prison sentence for "forming and

managing an illegal group", among other charges.

According to the international press freedom organisation Reporters Without

Borders (RSF), she was "forcibly" transferred in late December from Evin
prison in Tehran, where she had been held since 2015, to Zanjan in northwest
Iran.

"I'm preparing a letter to the prosecutor's office in which we state three

specific requests. The first is the transfer of Ms Mohammadi from Zanjan to
Tehran, where she lived and worked," Behzadi-Rad said.

"My second request is for medical leave for treatment in view of my client's
multiple illnesses, including pulmonary, which must be checked regularly," the
lawyer added, saying his client "did not have access to specialist doctors in
Zanjan".

He said he was also preparing a new application for parole on the basis of
time already served.

Iran is ranked 173 out of 180 countries in the 2020 edition of RSF's World
Press Freedom Index.