Narges Mohammadi, Iranian activist and Nobel peace prize winner, to go on new hunger strike as prize is awarded

Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi will go on a new hunger strike from her prison cell in Iran as the prize is awarded in Oslo on Sunday in her absence, her family said Saturday.

Mohammadi, who has campaigned against the compulsory wearing of the hijab and the death penalty in Iran, will go on hunger strike "in solidarity" with the Baha'i religious minority, her brother and husband told a press conference in the Norwegian capital on the eve of the Nobel award ceremony.

"She is not here with us today, she is in prison and she will be on a hunger strike in solidarity with a religious minority but we feel her presence here," her younger brother, Hamidreza Mohammadi, said in a brief opening statement.