Many baby brides had been hanged for killing their abusive husbands who left them with out safety.
Political executions on the rise in Iran now embrace girls
Since the start of 2024, Iran has executed at the very least 29 girls. Although unknown, many extra girls might have been executed.
These girls are sometimes younger and, like lots of the girls executed in Iran, are sometimes members of minority communities. What units them aside from different demise row inmates is that many of those girls are victims of kid marriage (and by extension, baby rape), home violence, gender-related crimes and injustices, and are handled as the one option to escape insupportable abuse. He dedicated homicide.
“Although the Islamic Republic permits ladies to marry on the age of 13, it doesn’t defend them from violent and abusive husbands and leaves them determined to flee crimes dedicated towards them. We are sentencing the women who dedicated the act to demise,” stated Hadi Ghami, director common. of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).
This 12 months, three feminine political prisoners, Pakshan Azizi, Valishe Moradi and Sharife Mohammadi, had been sentenced to demise. Azizi, a Kurdish girls’s rights activist and social employee, and Mohammadi, a labor activist, had been sentenced to demise in July for his or her peaceable actions. Moradi, a Kurdish political activist, was sentenced to demise in November. Mr. Mohammadi’s sentence was overturned on October 12, however Mr. Azizi and Mr. Moradi stay in danger.
All of those executions are happening inside a extremely flawed judicial system. Systemic issues embrace routine torture to extract coerced “confessions” and blatant denial of due course of and honest trial rights, together with entry to unbiased counsel.
CHRI urgently calls on the United Nations and its Member States to:
We name on Iran to instantly halt executions. Imposing human rights sanctions on judges who handed down unjust demise sentences. Calls on Iran to boost the authorized age of marriage to an internationally acknowledged customary. Urge authorities to interact Iranian civil society in a overview of home violence and the mandatory coverage and authorized reforms to guard girls and contextualize these crimes. Urge authorities to allocate sources to establishing intervention mechanisms, secure homes and academic initiatives to scale back home violence.
Activist: “I used to be a cellmate of those girls… 99% of them had been compelled into marriage earlier than the age of 18.”
In an interview with CHRI on December 9, 2024, former political prisoner and anti-death penalty activist Athena Daemi instructed the tales of imprisoned girls:
“I shared a cell with these girls for 3 and a half months in Qarchak Prison. [south of Tehran] and on one other event was imprisoned for 11.5 months in Rasht’s Lhakhang Jail. [northern Iran]. I’ve listened to their tales and I can let you know that 99% of them are girls who had been compelled into marriage earlier than the age of 18.
“Most of the ladies in Lhakhang Prison had been from villages and small cities removed from Rasht, the provincial capital. They had been marginalized all their lives and knew nothing about their rights. Forced into marriage by household Most folks don’t know about marriage. These girls had been stripped of all rights, compelled to marry males a lot older than themselves, and had been compelled to remain at dwelling and have kids at a really early age. In many instances, the age distinction between them and their kids was very small.
“Most of those girls have endured steady home violence as they grew up via childhood, adolescence and maturity. To escape this example, they’ve tried to divorce, however they don’t have any proper to divorce. Because of this, the divorce won’t achieve success. [Divorce is highly restricted and extraordinarily difficult for women to obtain in Iran, and if a woman leaves the marital home, she forfeits financial maintenance and custody of her children.]
“There are not any legal guidelines to guard girls, and households don’t help them in any respect. At the identical time, having kids makes divorce much more troublesome, and so they should endure hardships for the sake of their kids. For a lot of them, tolerance grew to become inconceivable and in some unspecified time in the future, throughout a dispute, they killed their husbands with none prior intention.”
In one case, Akhtar Ghorbanlou, a younger girl who was compelled to marry a person 18 years her senior on the age of 17, was later charged with poisoning and murdering her husband. Stuck in an abusive marriage, she had no authorized safety and confronted a justice system that ignored her scenario. Akhtar was sentenced to demise for “premeditated homicide” and was executed in October 2024 at Ahar Prison in northwestern Iran.
Demi additionally recounted tales of abuse suffered by incarcerated girls in Iranian prisons. There, they had been exploited as low-cost labor and compelled to adjust to the calls for of their guards beneath menace of execution.
“Another vital level about girls who had been imprisoned for years and had been awaiting the demise penalty was the mistreatment of ladies by the jail system. Prison guards and officers typically harassed these girls with threats of execution. They used them as low-cost labor. Most of those girls had been from very poor backgrounds and had no help from their households or authorities businesses.
The overwhelming majority of executions in Iran, together with of ladies, are for drug-related crimes. This is a violation of worldwide regulation outlined within the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Iran is a member, which requires the demise penalty to be utilized solely to the “most severe” crimes. Drug offenses don’t meet this customary. Demi instructed CHRI:
“As for the ladies sentenced to demise for drug-related offences, all of those girls had been sentenced to demise attributable to very troublesome financial situations and since drug cartels use girls as the best choice to move medication. It must be famous that these drug cartels used their place to realize the cooperation of ladies by providing them cash. I noticed many accused girls in Qarchak jail. [south of Tehran]I met a lady who was arrested and sentenced to demise after having a number of kilograms of medication implanted in her womb for little or no cash. Or, in Rasht’s Lhakhan Prison, I met a lady who additionally agreed to move 15 kilograms of medication from Gilan to Tehran for a small amount of cash, and was arrested and sentenced to demise.
“The most vital factor in regards to the demise penalty, particularly in drug instances, is that it isn’t a deterrent in any manner. I’ve 17 members of the family, together with my father and two uncles, who had been executed for drug crimes. I met a lady in jail who stated she had no selection however to proceed within the footsteps of her household.
Known feminine executions in 2024
On January 21, 2024, Hajar Atabaki, 41, from Tabriz in northwestern Iran, was executed at Qazvin Central Prison on drug-related fees. The execution was reported within the media a couple of month later. On January 31, 2024, Zahra Nazarian, a resident of Sabzevar in northeastern Iran, was executed on the metropolis’s central jail. She was discovered responsible of murdering her sister-in-law. On March 21, 2024, the demise sentence of an nameless girl from Jolfa in northeastern Iran was carried out at Tabriz Central Prison. The girl was executed alongside along with her husband on drug-related fees. In April 2024, three girls had been executed. Marjan Hajizadeh, from Zanjan in northwest Iran, was executed on drug-related fees. An unidentified Baluchi girl from the jap metropolis of Birjand was additionally arrested for drug-related crimes. Soraya Mohammadi is being held in Kezer Hessar Prison in Karaj, west Tehran, on homicide fees. In May 2024, 4 girls had been executed. Fariba Mohammad Zehi was executed in Kerman Central Prison in jap Iran on drug-related fees. Razieh (31) is being held in Vakirabad Prison in Mashhad, northeastern Iran, on fees of homicide. Parvin Mousavi, 50, is being held in Urmiyeh Central Prison in northwestern Iran for drug-related crimes, and Fatemeh Abdullahi, 27, is being held in Neyshabur Central Prison in northeastern Iran for homicide. In July 2024, 5 nameless girls had been executed. On July 21, a lady surnamed Mahmoudinia was executed for homicide in Shiraz, southern Iran. On July 23, three girls had been executed in Birjand, jap Iran, on drug-related fees. On July 27, an nameless girl was executed in Horamabad, southern Iran, on drug-related fees. In October 2024, 5 girls, Zahra Faizi and Nastaran Firouzi, had been executed in Tabriz. Akhtar Ghorbanlou from Ahar in northwestern Iran. and two nameless girls, Hamadan and Karaj. In November 2024, 4 girls had been executed. Mahrok Khani of Tabriz. Fariba Maleki Shiravand from Khoramabad and two nameless girls from Rasht and Karaj. On December 2, 2024, three girls had been executed. Farideh Jafarzadeh (roughly 50 years outdated) and Aliyeh Kafkarizadeh (age 60) from Ilam in western Iran had been executed for homicide, whereas Faldeh Alamoradi from Isfahan in central Iran was additionally executed for homicide. On December 5, 2024, 37-year-old Amene Alipour was executed in Zanjan, northwestern Iran. On December 15, 2024, an nameless girl was executed in Yazd, central Iran, for drug-related crimes.
“The prevalence and unlawful use of the demise penalty in Iran, and the speedy improve in executions towards girls, require instant world motion,” Ghami stated. “The escalation of this disaster is exposing deeply entrenched programs of violent injustice that proceed to focus on weak populations.”
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