Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, one of Iran’s most prominent human rights activists, was rearrested Friday when Iranian authorities violently raided a memorial ceremony she attended at a mosque in Iran’s northeastern city of Mashhad. “She’s been seen as a huge threat to the Islamic Republic’s regime,” says Porochista Khakpour, Iranian American author and essayist. “They find her moral authority extremely intimidating.”

Mohammadi has spent more than 10 years of her life in and out of prison, most recently when she was arrested in November 2021 and accused — among other charges — of threatening Iran’s national security and spreading “propaganda” against the state for her decadeslong work fighting for human rights, women’s rights and democracy in Iran.