Iran’s imprisoned Nobel peace prize winner Narges Mohammadi has been transferred to hospital to receive urgent care after experiencing a “catastrophic deterioration” of her health, a foundation run by her family said on Saturday.

Mohammadi was moved on Friday after suffering a heart attack and experiencing two episodes of “complete” unconsciousness, it said. Detained Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi has been hospitalised in Iran, her supporters said, “following a catastrophic deterioration of her health”.

Mohammadi, who won the peace prize in 2023 in recognition of more than two decades of rights campaigning, was arrested in December in Iran’s eastern city of Mashhad after speaking out against the country’s clerical authorities at a funeral ceremony.

Her supporters had been issuing warnings for months about her health, saying in late March that she had suffered a suspected heart attack but received inadequate medical treatment.

In a statement posted by her foundation on Friday, they said she was “urgently transferred to a hospital in Zanjan today” after a rapid deterioration, “including two episodes of complete loss of consciousness and a severe cardiac crisis”.

The statement said her family described the move as a “last-minute action” that could prove too late.

In Oslo the Norwegian Nobel Committee urged the Iranian authorities “to immediately transfer Narges Mohammadi to her dedicated medical team in Tehran”.

“Without such treatment, her life remains at risk,” committee chair Jorgen Watne Frydnes said. “Her life is now in the hands of the Iranian authorities.”

In a social media post, her lawyer Mostafa Nili said Mohammadi initially refused to be transferred to hospital after fainting the first time from a sudden drop in blood pressure, because of previous warnings from medics that Zanjan hospital was not capable of treating her.

But, following a second collapse and a further deterioration, she was moved to the facility.

“According to the neurologist, despite her serious cardiac issues, addressing her neurological state is currently the clinical priority,” Nili said.

Over the past quarter of a century, Mohammadi, 53, has been repeatedly tried and jailed for her campaigning against Iran’s use of capital punishment and its mandatory dress code for women.