The head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee urged Iran to release imprisoned peace prize winner Narges Mohammadi and let her accept the award at the annual prize ceremony in December.
The head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee urged Iran to release imprisoned peace prize winner Narges Mohammadi and let her accept the award at the annual prize ceremony in December.
Such appeals have had little effect in the past.
Mohammadi, an Iranian human rights activist, is the fifth peace laureate to get the prize while in prison or under house arrest. In none of the previous cases did the prize result in the recipient’s release. Two of them remained in captivity until they died.
Here’s a look at previous Nobel laureates who were in detention:
CARL VON OSSIETZKY
The 1935 Nobel Peace Prize to German journalist Carl Von Ossietzky so infuriated Adolf Hitler that the Nazi leader prohibited all Germans from receiving Nobel Prizes.
Ossietzky had been imprisoned for exposing secret plans for German rearmament in the 1920s. He was released after seven months but arrested again and sent to a concentration camp after the Nazis took power in 1933.
Despite a campaign to set him free, the government refused to release Ossietzky, who was ill with tuberculosis.