By: Rezvan Moghaddam

The news of another woman’s killing has been reported. The killing took place in 2019,
and now, after six years, the killer has been arrested. Notably, the arrest was not the
result of police efforts; rather, the perpetrator confessed to the killing out of exhaustion
from being on the run. This shows that addressing cases of femicide and violence
against women is not only not a priority for the police and the judicial and security
apparatus, but is pushed to the margins, leaving families waiting for years for justice to
be served.
In June 2019, Samira was stabbed multiple times in her own bedroom, the safest place
she should have had, under the pretext that, as her husband claimed, “he suspected
her of having relations with another person and of having an abortion.” The killer fled the
scene cold-bloodedly. Samira’s family reported the killing to the police the same day, but
not only was no action taken to arrest him, the killer, who had fled to Turkey, was shortly
afterward deported to Iran as an Afghan national. After his return to Iran, he eventually
confessed to the killing while in a drug rehabilitation camp in Tehran.
In describing the incident to the judges, the killer said:
“About nine months before the killing, I found out Samira was pregnant, but she
intended to have an abortion. I was against it. One day, when I woke up, she wasn’t
home. A few hours later I found out she had gone with one of our neighbors, named
Khosrow, to a midwife to terminate the pregnancy. I was very angry that she had gone
with that strange man and gotten rid of the baby. I also thought maybe she had a
special relationship with Khosrow.”
Women in Iran are deprived of control over their own bodies not only at home under the
patriarchal traditions of society, but also under the reactionary laws of the Islamic
Republic. Such traditions and laws, which treat men as the owners of women’s bodies,
perpetuate violence and legitimize, in men’s eyes, the killing of women.
Samira’s family told officers that she had reconciled with her husband after eight
months. The killer also told the court that the reconciliation had taken place through the
mediation of their families. This demonstrates that families are often not protectors of
women; instead, women are forced to live with men who have repeatedly subjected
them to violence, and families merely encourage them to endure such abusive lives.

#StopHonorKillingsCampaign

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#NoToViolenceAgainstWomen

#TheIslamicRepublicIsResponsibleForTheMu#rderOfWomen

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