Freedom by murder

Battered women awaiting execution

“When I saw him take her clothes off, I couldn’t take it anymore” These are the words of a death row inmate named “Fatemeh” who was sentenced to death for strangling her husband to death. She was just a child when she was forced into marrying a man she barely knew and before their first anniversary, she was already a mom to a baby girl. She wasn’t happy about having a daughter knowing a similar fate may await her. She shares her story in a documentary called Murder or murdered by Mahvash sheikhol eslami. Mahvash sits down with dozens of death row inmates with similar stories, every single one is a victim of child marriage and domestic abuse.

Before the Iranian revolution in 1979, the legal age for women to get married was 18 years but after the revolution, it was reduced to 9 years old. Independent Farsi reported that in 2020, twenty-seven thousand girls got married under the age of 15 however the number could be much larger, as some families lie to the court about their children’s age to be able to obtain a marriage license. Based on figures published by Iran’s census registration bureau, in 2021 791 babies were born in the span of only 6 months from mothers aged 10-14.

Fatemeh weeps as she recounts the events of that fateful night. “He was high out of his mind on meth, I heard some banging coming from one of the bedrooms, I opened the door and saw my husband trying to undress my fifteen-year-old daughter. She was a heavy girl, but she could not move. She tried to push him away but every time her hand touched his naked body she would pull away out of disgust. When he took her bra off and held her head backward, I couldn’t contain myself anymore. I had to kill him. I strangled him, I just tightened my hands around his neck, I don’t know for how long, 20 maybe 30 minutes.”

In Iran, women and girls do not benefit from the law. The law is written against them. Self-defense would not hold up very well in court. The judges are all religious men. The women are guilty until proven innocent which does not happen very often. The institutions of the Islamic Republic have failed to take the necessary measures and to pass any laws to support security of women in their family and society.

 One prime example is the case of Reyhane Jabbari which caught the attention of the international media and human rights activists a few years ago. She was convicted of murdering Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, a former agent of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence. Reyhane claimed that Abdol Abadi lured her into his apartment where he attempted to rape her, but she stabbed him in self-defense. Reyhane also claimed he was alive when she fled the scene, and his wounds were not fatal. The court did not accept her defense convicted her of first-degree murder and sentenced her to death by hanging. Amnesty International, the United Nations, and the European Union had lobbied for her life to be spared. Her punishment was postponed from the original date April 2014, but she was eventually executed in October 2014.

The story does not end here. Samira Sabzian is the most recent victim of the gender apartheid in Iran. She was sentenced to death and eventually executed for killing his violent husband. She got married at the age of 15 and according to her relatives, she was a victim of domestic abuse. Today there are no laws in place in Iran to protect women and children.