On Tuesday, September 2, 2025, in Maragheh, a 41-year-old man named Aziz killed his
wife, Somayeh Kioumarthi (38), and their two daughters, Sanaz Dolatkhaah (17) and
Maral Dolatkhaah (9), in their home in the Fowareli neighborhood, citing \u201chonor\u201d as his
motive. The perpetrator first stabbed his wife to death, then strangled his 17-year-old
daughter Sanaz and his 9-year-old daughter Maral, and later turned himself in to the
local police.
State-run media outlets, including Rokna, reported the tragedy using vague terms like
\u201cfamily problems,\u201d a phrase that neither reflects the reality of the crime nor holds the
perpetrators or the enabling structures accountable. Terms like \u201cfamily problems\u201d are
linguistic constructs designed to obscure male-perpetrated violence, implying a mutual
dispute or minor conflict, when in reality, three innocent lives were brutally ended by one
violent man.
Similarly, the frequently used term \u201cfamily murder\u201d conceals the political and structural
dimensions of such crimes. This phrase places the victim and the perpetrator on the
same level, suggesting that the \u201cwhole family\u201d is destroyed, when the truth is starkly
different: women and children are the victims of patriarchy and a judicial system that
neither prevents these crimes nor imposes meaningful penalties, allowing violence to
continue.
Laws that give men control over women\u2019s lives, media that obscure and downplay honor
killings as \u201cfamily murders,\u201d and a governing system that reproduces violence\u2014all play
a direct and decisive role in perpetuating and normalizing these crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Follow news in the Stop honor Killings Campaign Telegram group:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/t.me\/stophonorkilling
Support the Stop honor Killings Campaign with Your Donations via PayPal:
https:\/\/paypal.me\/stophonorkillings?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stop honor Killings Campaign<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Tuesday, September 2, 2025, in Maragheh, a 41-year-old man named Aziz killed hiswife, Somayeh Kioumarthi (38), and their two daughters, Sanaz Dolatkhaah (17) andMaral Dolatkhaah (9), in their home in the Fowareli neighborhood,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,5,6],"tags":[21,470,305,284,403,408,172],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stophonorkillings.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stophonorkillings.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stophonorkillings.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stophonorkillings.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stophonorkillings.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stophonorkillings.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1539,"href":"https:\/\/stophonorkillings.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1537\/revisions\/1539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stophonorkillings.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stophonorkillings.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stophonorkillings.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stophonorkillings.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}