By:Rezvan Moghaddam<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the early hours of Wednesday, November 6, 2024, a brief scream shattered the
silence of the dark night. Javad, a 58-year-old man, stood in a corner of his home,
gripping a heavy pickaxe. His gaze shifted between his half-conscious wife lying on the
bed and his horrified son standing in the doorway. He paused, breathing heavily, and
then a cold silence fell over everything.
Just hours earlier, the house had seemed calm. But inside Javad, a storm had been
brewing, fueled by “family disputes” and “a wounded sense of masculinity,” as the police
report would later phrase it\u2014though such words could never fully capture the gravity of
the tragedy.
When the police arrived, there was no trace of regret on Javad’s face. He bluntly stated,
\u201cI hit her\u2026 I hit her with a pickaxe. I couldn\u2019t take it anymore.\u201d Javad confessed that he\u2019d
been planning this for a long time, but that night, with his wife asleep, he felt he could no
longer wait.
At the hospital, the 53-year-old woman hovered between life and death, with doctors
reporting her chances of recovery at less than five percent. But the larger question
loomed: Why? Why must a woman suffer such horrific violence?
Like many other femicides, this crime unfolded under the shadow of patriarchal laws,
with no legal system to raise alarm before the tragedy. No support existed to save her
from an abusive relationship. Only vague terms like “family disputes” surfaced\u2014words
often used to sanitize such cases in state-run media, downplaying and obscuring the
reality.
Their young son didn\u2019t sleep that night and perhaps never will again. He not only
witnessed his mother\u2019s slow descent toward death but learned a bitter lesson\u2014that
justice in his home, in this city, and perhaps in this country, often goes unserved. The
morning that followed brought no relief, only a heavier burden on the survivors. The
woman lay suspended between life and death, her story mirroring that of countless
nameless women\u2014stories marked by silence, blood, and cries that go unheard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n