INTERNACIONAL
Could Narges Mohammadi unite Iran’s opposition? Husband says imprisoned Nobel laureate still fighting
Where’s the Opposition in Iran to Oust Regime?
David Asman and Jonathan Schanzer analyze the ongoing US military campaign in Iran, Operation Epic Fury, where CENTCOM reports over 10,000 targets struck. They discuss the decimation of Iranian regime leadership and the surprising reluctance of European allies to fully support President Trump’s aggressive strategy, citing past diplomatic disputes and potential economic pressure. The segment also explores the challenges of an internal opposition movement amid severe human rights abuses.
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EXCLUSIVE: As Iran’s opposition struggles to find a unifying figure amid war, repression and near-total internet blackouts, the husband of jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi says his wife remains physically battered but politically unbroken, even as she sits in prison after what he describes as a brutal arrest and beating.
«Narges is a human rights activist and an advocate for civil society,» her husband, Taghi Rahmani, told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview from Europe in exile. «In mobilizing society, and in organizing and shaping civil institutions, she is an active and courageous woman.»
At a moment when Iran’s ruling establishment is reeling from the aftermath of U.S. and Israeli strikes, a fragile ceasefire, economic collapse and intensified crackdowns, Mohammadi’s name is emerging in a new light: Not only as a global symbol of resistance, but potentially as one of the few opposition figures whose legitimacy comes from suffering inside the system rather than exile, dynasty or factional politics.
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Mohammadi, awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize while imprisoned, has spent decades as one of Iran’s most prominent women’s rights and human rights activists.
Trained as an engineer and later a journalist, she served as vice president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, founded by fellow Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi and became internationally known for campaigning against compulsory hijab laws, solitary confinement, prisoner abuse and the death penalty.
Narges Mohammadi, Iranian human rights activist and vice president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, poses for a portrait in an undated photo. (Reuters)
Now, according to her husband, her condition has worsened dramatically.
«Narges is currently detained in Zanjan prison,» he said. «She was arrested in Mashhad during the month of Dey (around January) and was severely beaten. During her arrest, she received numerous blows, resulting in severe injuries to her chest, head, body and lungs.»
Rahmani said prison medical authorities determined she should be transferred for treatment under her own physician’s supervision in Iran, but that Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence is refusing the transfer and insisting she remain in Zanjan.
«Spiritually and mentally, Narges remains steadfast,» he said. «She believes the Islamic Republic is not desirable for the Iranian people, and advocates for a system based on freedom, human rights and open relations with the world. Physically, however, she has sustained severe trauma and urgently requires medical attention.»
Rahmani said the last time he spoke with his wife was the night before she left for Mashhad, Iran, where she was later arrested.
The Nobel banquet at the Grand Hotel in Oslo on Sunday, in connection with the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize 2023. Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi is imprisoned in Iran and is therefore represented by her children Ali and Kiana Rahmani and her spouse Taghi Rahmani, in Oslo, Norway Dec. 10, 2023. (NTB/Rodrigo Freitas via Reuters)
His account offers a rare inside look into the life of one of Iran’s most internationally recognized dissidents at a moment when questions over who could realistically lead opposition to the regime are intensifying.
«We hear a great deal about the Iranian opposition, yet media in the free world often lack a precise definition and a full understanding of what the Iranian opposition actually is,» Iranian anti-regime activist Maryam Shariatmadari told Fox News Digital.
Shariatmadari, one of the most recognizable faces of Iran’s «Girls of Revolution Street» movement, a wave of anti-regime protests that began in 2017 when Iranian women publicly removed their hijabs and stood in defiance of the country’s mandatory veiling laws, was sentenced to prison in 2018 after publicly removing her hijab in protest.
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Ali Rahmani, son of imprisoned Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, speaks after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize 2023 on her behalf at Oslo City Hall in Norway. (Fredrik Varfjell/NTB)
According to Shariatmadari, one camp consists of Iranians who view the 1979 Islamic Revolution itself as the foundational national disaster, believing Iran’s trajectory was derailed when the Shah fell. The second includes former revolutionaries, reformists, communist factions and groups such as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), many of whom emerged from or once supported the revolutionary system before later opposing it.
«The first group considers the 1979 revolution a disaster and seeks a return to Iran’s previous path,» she said, while the second includes «those who participated in the revolution but later became opposition figures after being excluded from power.»
That distinction, she argues, helps explain why Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah, remains uniquely recognizable among many anti-regime Iranians despite spending decades outside the country.
Lisa Daftari, foreign policy analyst and editor-in-chief of The Foreign Desk news platform, told Fox News Digital, «Inside Iran, Pahlavi remains one of the only opposition figures with broad name recognition, and his message clearly resonated during the January protests, which is why his name still carries weight for many Iranians both inside the country and in the diaspora.»
Pahlavi himself sharpened that message Friday after a series of European appearances, accusing both European politicians and journalists of ignoring the scale of Iranian suffering.
«I spent the past several weeks traveling across Europe, speaking to members of parliaments, governments, and the press,» Pahlavi said in a video statement on his official X account. «My visit had one objective: to give a voice to the millions of Iranians held hostage by the Islamic Republic … But I can now say with confidence that silencing, that censorship is not just happening at the hands of the regime in Iran, but by the international and particularly the European media.»
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Iran’s Reza Pahlavi, exiled son of Shah Reza Pahlavi, is protected by security after he was attacked with a red fluid, following a news conference in Berlin, Germany, April 23, 2026. (Markus Schreiber/The Associated Press )
He went on to condemn what he described as European indifference to the mass killing of protesters and political executions, saying that across two press conferences in Stockholm and Berlin attended by more than 150 journalists, «not a single one» asked about the tens of thousands he says were killed during January’s crackdown or the political prisoners facing execution.
«Whether or not Europe stands with us … I will fight for my people and my country,» Pahlavi said. «We will fight until Iran is free.»
Still, even some supporters acknowledge why the administration has hesitated to openly embrace him as a transitional figure.
Daftari warned that overt Western backing could backfire by making him appear externally imposed rather than domestically legitimized.
«The Trump administration’s decision not to more openly embrace him as a transitional figure likely reflects several factors: a deep wariness of making regime change the explicit end goal or appearing to engineer it after Iraq and Afghanistan, concern that overt U.S. backing could put an even bigger target on his back and a strategy that is currently focused less on anointing a successor and more on degrading the regime’s capacity to threaten its own people, the region and the United States,» she said.
If Pahlavi represents dynastic memory and explicit regime-change politics, Mohammadi represents something profoundly different.
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Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s former Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, speaks during a press conference in Paris June 23, 2025. (Thomas Padilla/AP)
Mohammadi’s place within that landscape is distinct due to her unique kind of legitimacy at a time when many Iranians are searching not only for opposition to the regime, but for a figure who embodies endurance under it.
For now, however, Rahmani warns that Iran’s domestic conditions may make any mass uprising extraordinarily difficult.
«As you know, war serves as an excuse to suppress domestic forces within a country,» he said. «This war has now increased the intensity of the regime’s actions against the opposition.»
He argued that despite internal divisions, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has effectively consolidated power, militarized the streets and severely weakened civil society.
«The Islamic Republic has practically taken control of the streets during wartime and has severely weakened Iran’s civil society, which is the guarantor of democracy. In our opinion, this war, under these conditions, is not to the benefit of Iran, nor to the benefit of the Iranian people.»
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A picture of Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi on the wall of the Grand Hotel in central Oslo before the Nobel banquet, in connection with the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize 2023, in Oslo, Norway, Dec. 10, 2023. (NTB/Javad Parsa via Reuters)
That may be the defining challenge for Iran’s opposition today: not simply finding a leader, but surviving long enough under extraordinary repression for one to emerge.
Whether Mohammadi can become that figure remains uncertain. But from prison, her husband says, she has not stopped believing Iran’s future can be different.
The Iranian mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
war with iran, ali khamenei, persecutions, human rights, iran
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Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar of Florida stated in a Monday social media post that «After Cuba, Nicaragua is next.»
The Central American nation’s president, Daniel Ortega, said on Sunday, «There won’t be any more elections here for them to try to seize the government and seize power,» according to Reuters. «The days when parties backed by the Yankees (United States) and the Somocistas would return to power are over – never again,» he said, according to the outlet.
In her Monday post on X, Salazar said, «Daniel Ortega just announced that Nicaragua will no longer hold elections. When a communist dictator knows the people would vote him out, he takes away their vote. Repression, fear, and force become the only way to stay in power. The Ortega-Murillo regime has declared war on the Nicaraguan people’s right to choose their own future.»
Ortega’s wife Rosario Murillo is co-president, reports indicate.
«The United States must stand unequivocally with the people of Nicaragua, increase the pressure on this despicable regime, and ensure that those responsible for its crimes are held accountable. After Cuba, Nicaragua is next,» Salazar added in the post.
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Rep. María Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., leaves a news conference in the U.S. Capitol on developments regarding Cuba including the indictment of former Cuban President Raul Castro, on Wednesday, May 20, 2026. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
The U.S. snatched Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and his wife out of Venezuela and transported them back to the U.S. earlier this year.
The U.S. later launched a war against the Islamic Republic of Iran in conjunction with Israel.
And then during a speech in March, U.S. President Donald Trump said «Cuba’s next.»
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Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s president, during the 23rd States of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) Summit at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, on Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (Gaby Oraa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Fox News Digital reached out to Salazar’s office on Tuesday to ask more about her comment suggesting that «After Cuba, Nicaragua is next.»
The congresswoman said in a Tuesday post on X, «One by one, the dictators of the last era are answering for their crimes. Maduro sleeps in a cell in New York. The Ayatollah is dead. Raúl Castro is under indictment. Daniel Ortega, whose regime killed more than 300 peaceful protesters in 2018, jailed opposition candidates before elections, exiled priests, stripped hundreds of Nicaraguans of their citizenship, and has now abolished elections altogether, still sits in Managua. Communist dictators don’t fear losing elections. They fear having them. His day will come.»
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a Tuesday statement, «Daniel Ortega’s declaration that under his family’s dictatorship Nicaragua will never again hold elections lays bare their true authoritarian nature. Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have abandoned even the pretense of popular consent.
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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio greets Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi ahead of their bilateral meeting at the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., United States, on July 14, 2026. (Mehmet Eser/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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«The Nicaraguan people have the right to choose their own leaders through democratic elections. The United States calls on the international community to join forces to demonstrate to the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship that it cannot expect to maintain business as usual with other nations when it is thwarting the basic tenets of our democratic hemisphere,» Rubio asserted.
politics, central america, republicans, world, donald trump
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EXCLUSIVE: President Donald Trump has directed federal agencies to waive prior nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) for former government employees and contractors cooperating with unidentified anomalous phenomena investigations, Fox News Digital has learned.
«President Trump recently directed the Department of War and the intelligence community to allow former government employees or contractors, that have relevant information about the disclosure of UAP, to come forward to meet with designated government representatives — AARO or the President’s UAP taskforce, ‘PURSUE’ — and have their prior NDAs abrogated,» a senior administration official said, with AARO referring to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the Pentagon office established to investigate UFOs and other unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs).
Another senior administration official emphasized the move was not a «declassification directive» and only allowed employees to come forward through government channels.
Officials say years of congressional inquiries, whistleblower allegations and newly declassified records have raised questions about whether additional witnesses have remained silent because they believed prior nondisclosure agreements prevented them from cooperating with government investigations.
Newly released infrared footage from U.S. Indo-Pacific Command shows an object officials described as resembling a six-pointed star over the Yellow Sea Jan. 1, 2025. (Department of War )
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FBI rendering of witness account of «orbs launching orbs» is pictured above (Department of War)
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«People who believe that they have information have expressed reluctance in coming forward,» the official said. «We are eliminating that source of reluctance.»
Like other government employees and defense contractors with access to classified information or sensitive national security programs, many witnesses would have signed nondisclosure agreements as a condition of receiving security clearances or access to restricted information. Those agreements generally prohibit unauthorized disclosure of classified or otherwise protected information and typically remain in effect even after an individual leaves government service.
Former officials and contractors who disclose protected information without authorization risk losing security clearances, facing civil penalties or, in some circumstances, criminal prosecution if classified information is improperly disclosed.
Under the new process, former government employees and contractors who believe they possess relevant UAP information would first meet with designated officials at the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) or the president’s UAP task force, PURSUE, who hold the appropriate security clearances. During those authorized discussions, any applicable nondisclosure agreements could be waived, allowing witnesses to share information without fear of violating prior agreements.
Information provided through the process would be reviewed through the administration’s existing declassification procedures.
«Any information that is received that sheds light on the UAP mystery will ultimately be made public,» the official said.
A screenshot of video footage from an alleged unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP) sighting in the northeastern United States in July 2025, which was detailed in files released by the DOW and originally obtained by the FBI. (DOW/FBI)
The official said the administration does not know whether potential witnesses actually possess significant new information, but wants to remove any perceived legal barriers so investigators can determine whether previously undisclosed information exists.
«You don’t know what you don’t know,» the official said.
The official said the focus is on incidents that remain unexplained, rather than known foreign technology, classified U.S. programs or natural phenomena.
The latest directive builds on the Trump administration’s broader effort to declassify decades of government records related to unidentified anomalous phenomena. Previous releases have included FBI and Pentagon records describing unexplained sightings reported by military personnel, law enforcement and astronauts, including accounts of glowing «mother orbs» that witnesses said released smaller objects near a sensitive U.S. national security site, mysterious orange spheres observed during military operations, and Apollo-era transcripts in which astronauts described unexplained lights and «jagged, angular fragments» drifting outside their spacecraft.
The latest tranche of UAP records included expanded details and imagery from a 2015 incident involving an unidentified object over the Pantex nuclear weapons facility in Texas, along with newly declassified infrared footage showing a mysterious six-pointed star-shaped object tracked by a U.S. military sensor over the Yellow Sea on Jan. 1, 2025.
The official said the next tranche of files will be made available «very soon.»
The directive follows years of complaints from some lawmakers and whistleblowers that former officials with firsthand knowledge were reluctant to come forward because of secrecy obligations.
An artist’s rendering released by the U.S. Department of War depicting a 2023 sighting of «orbs launching other orbs» near a national security site in the western United States. (Department of War)
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio, then the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in 2023 that multiple individuals with firsthand knowledge had approached the committee but were hesitant to speak publicly because of potential repercussions.
«Some of these people still work in the government and frankly, a lot of them are very fearful — fearful of their jobs, fearful of their clearances, fearful of their career, and some, frankly, are fearful of harm coming to them,» he said on News Nation in June 2023.
«Grant immunity to anyone who has already come forward, and everyone who will come forward. Open the door and let them speak,» Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., demanded during a June 9 press conference on Capitol Hill.
Public interest in UAPs accelerated in 2017 after The New York Times revealed the Pentagon had quietly operated a secret program to investigate unexplained aerial encounters and published Navy cockpit videos showing objects exhibiting unusual flight characteristics.
Since then, Congress has held multiple bipartisan hearings on the issue, lawmakers have pressed intelligence agencies for greater transparency and former intelligence officer David Grusch’s allegations that the government had concealed information about UAP programs renewed calls for additional disclosure, despite the government’s denial of his central claims.
During the same event, former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch renewed his allegations that secret UAP programs had operated outside normal congressional oversight, calling it «a real fraud, waste and abuse issue» and claiming his investigation uncovered «slush funds to the tune of billions of dollars per annum for these activities.»
The Pentagon has disputed Grusch’s central claims, and AARO has said its investigations found no verified evidence of extraterrestrial technology or credible evidence that the government has secretly recovered or reverse-engineered craft of non-human origin.
ufos, investigations, donald trump
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