On Friday, December 19, 2025, a 70-year-old man in Mashhad murdered his 60-year-
old wife by repeatedly striking her on the head with an axe, blows that shattered her
skull. The brutality did not end there: after killing her, the perpetrator tore open the
victim’s abdomen with scissors and even attempted to sever her legs with the axe. This
level of naked violence is not the result of a momentary altercation, but rather the
exercise of absolute power over the body of a woman who, within the framework of the
family, was deprived of any effective protection.
After committing the crime, the perpetrator turned himself in to the police and, in his
confession, cited the motive for the killing as “differences and arguments over private
and marital relations.” He explicitly refers to an issue that, within the legal structure of
the Islamic Republic of Iran, is defined through concepts such as tamkin (obedience)—a
concept grounded not in consent, but in submission and coercion.
Nevertheless, official media have reported this horrific killing under the vague and
neutralizing label of “family disputes and emotional issues”—a term whose function is
not to inform, but to sanitize violence and erase its structural roots. A “dispute” only has
meaning when both parties possess equal power and agency; whereas here we are
confronted with a relationship in which the law officially grants men decision-making
power over women’s bodies.
In a system where sexual obedience is defined as a woman’s legal duty, a woman’s
body becomes a domain of male ownership, and the private sphere of the family turns
into a zone beyond oversight and accountability. Violence in such a context is not an
exception, but a tool for enforcing a patriarchal order in which a woman’s disobedience,
even in its simplest form, can lead to lethal punishment.
This killing is neither a “family matter” nor an “emotional conflict.” It is the stark
manifestation of unequal power, discriminatory law, and a culture that treats obedience
as virtue and violence as a man’s implicit right. When the law does not speak of consent
and instead institutionalizes coercion, femicide becomes a predictable and recurring
outcome. What occurred is a clear example of systematic femicide crime that does not
happen in a vacuum but is the direct product of a structure that deems women’s bodies
controllable, punishable, and ultimately disposable.

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Mashhad_KhorasanProvince

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