Solmaz Abbasi, a 43-year-old volleyball coach and newly hired schoolteacher, was brutally murdered by her husband on Saturday, June 28, 2025, in her lawyer’s office in Urmia, capital of the West Azerbaijan Province, Iran.
She was stabbed 21 times in a gruesome act of violence. The killing occurred while Solmaz Abbasi was in the process of finalizing her divorce after a history of domestic abuse.
Her husband attempted suicide following the murder but survived. Police forces arrived at the scene shortly thereafter and apprehended him by force after locating him hiding in a locked room.
A close friend of Solmaz Abbasi stated that she had been subjected to long-term domestic violence and, following the death of her father, had sought refuge at her mother’s home. She lived with her 17-year-old son, Mani.
The friend also revealed that Abbasi’s husband had previously attacked her with a cold weapon during a scheduled visit.
As a precaution, she arranged their next meeting to take place at her lawyer’s office — a decision that tragically failed to prevent her murder. The perpetrator locked the door and carried out the fatal assault with a knife.
Solmaz Abbasi had recently earned her international volleyball coaching certification and was widely seen as an emblem of professional and personal independence.
Her murder underscores the persistent and systemic nature of gender-based violence in Iran, as well as the failure of the judicial and social systems to provide women with meaningful protection.
The Root Cause of the Problem
Social catastrophes have political roots. In the final analysis, the root cause must be attributed to the inhuman and misogynist clerical regime, which is the primary origin of the complexes of this period of Iranian history. Women and girls are the prime victims of the regime’s inhuman ideology and policy.
These killings, more than being acts committed by fathers or husbands, are the result of explicit and implicit legal permissions shaped by the reactionary ideology of Iran’s ruling regime—a regime that executes one person every three hours, does not criminalize violence against women, and provides no legal protection for vulnerable women.
In conclusion, the root cause of the alarming rate of so-called honor killings in Iran lies in the misogyny and entrenched patriarchy institutionalized in the laws of the clerical regime—a regime that will soon be overthrown by the Iranian people.
