By: Rezvan Moghaddam

On Friday, April 11, 2025, Hediyeh Fallah Makrani, a 19-year-old woman from
Miandorud, Mazandaran, was killed by unknown individuals in the forests of
Abbasabad, Behshahr, a city in Mazandaran Province. According to informed sources,
she was assaulted before being killed, her hands and feet were tied, and she was
hanged. Her body was discovered two days later by local residents and buried on
Monday in her hometown.
Several days after the crime, no suspects have been arrested, and investigations are
still ongoing to identify those responsible. According to documentation by the Stop
honor Killings Campaign, more than 19 women were killed by male relatives in the
month of Farvardin (March–April) 2025 alone.
The brutal killing of Hediyeh Fallah Makrani once again reveals the structural insecurity
and vulnerability of women in a society where neither the law protects their lives, nor official
institutions guarantee their safety. Her body was found bearing signs of assault, torture,
and hanging—evidence of a planned, systematic act of violence, not an isolated
incident.
The failure to arrest any suspects in the days following the discovery of her body—and
the silence or inaction of responsible institutions such as the judiciary, police, and state
media shows that such violence is not only uncontrolled but often aligns with the
systemic tolerance and silence embedded in the Islamic Republic’s governance. In
many cases, women had already sought help from the police or local authorities before
being killed, but their pleas were ignored.
Hediyeh’s killing is only one of the grim examples from Farvardin 2025. According to the
Stop honor Killings Campaign, more than 19 women were killed by male relatives or
acquaintances in this single month. Many of these killings are whitewashed under
vague and fabricated labels such as “family disputes”—terms that state media use to
normalize femicide and institutionalize gender-based violence.
While the Islamic Republic imposes harsh sentences on women protesting compulsory
hijab or women’s rights activists, the punishment for those who kill women or commit
sexual violence is rarely serious or deterrent. This double standard exposes the fact that
the state not only lacks a plan to protect women’s lives, but its very structures serve to
suppress, control, and eliminate them.
Hediyeh Fallah was not just the victim of unknown killers—she was the victim of a
system in which being a woman is itself a threat to survival. Her killing symbolizes the

helplessness of millions of Iranian women who, under the shadow of the Islamic
Republic, are denied safety, justice, and freedom.

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