ZANJAN — Iranian human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi was transferred from a prison in Zanjan, northwestern Iran, to a hospital in the same city and admitted to its cardiac care unit. The transfer followed two fainting episodes in the prison earlier the same day.

The Narges Mohammadi Foundation said she experienced two episodes of complete loss of consciousness and a severe cardiac crisis. "This transfer was done as an unavoidable necessity after prison doctors determined her condition could not be managed on-site, despite standing medical recommendations that she be treated by her specialized team in Tehran," the foundation said.

The foundation said her family and lawyer had requested that she be transferred to specialist care in Tehran, but authorities refused. The foundation, quoting her family, said her transfer was "a desperate, 'last-minute' action that may be too late to address her critical needs." The foundation said the transfer came after 140 days of systematic medical neglect since her arrest on Dec. 12.

Mostafa Nili, a lawyer for Mohammadi, posted on X that her blood pressure had experienced severe fluctuations, going very high and low, and that she fainted due to a sudden drop in blood pressure. Nili said the prison doctor initially injected Mohammadi with drugs but she refused hospital transfer, demanding to see her cardiologist. He said that a few hours later she fainted again and a neurologist ordered her immediate transfer to a hospital. A medical official in Zanjan recommended a one-month suspension of her sentence for treatment, but the public prosecutor in Zanjan referred the matter to his counterpart in Tehran, her lawyer said.

Mohammadi, 53, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 while imprisoned. Her lawyers said she was believed to have suffered a heart attack in late March, after fellow inmates found her unconscious on March 24. During that incident, she appeared pale, underweight and needed a nurse to help her walk, her lawyers said. She has experienced chest pain and breathing difficulties since the suspected heart attack, her lawyers said.

Her family said in February that her health was worsening in prison in part because of a beating she endured during her December arrest, when multiple men hit and kicked her in her side, head and neck, her family said. The Nobel committee condemned the "ongoing life-threatening mistreatment" of Mohammadi in a statement in February.