In the early hours of Thursday, August 14, 2025, a man—residing in one of Golestan province’s towns—first murdered his wife and their two children. He then traveled to the city of Amol in Mazandaran province, where his wife’s family lived.
Armed with a handgun, he fatally shot his wife’s two sisters, her father, his brother-in-law, and his young child. The attack left a total of eight people dead—three women, three children, and two other relatives—and three others seriously wounded, who were transferred to a hospital for treatment.
The perpetrator ended the killing spree by shooting himself with the same firearm.
Local sources cited “family disputes” as the reported motive behind the massacre.
The killings constitute femicide within the intimate partner/family-related category and are an extreme form of violence against women, per UN Women/UNODC/WHO frameworks.
The Root Cause of the Problem
Social catastrophes have political roots. In the final analysis, the root cause of widespread femicide in Iran must be attributed to the inhuman and misogynist clerical regime, which is the primary source of the deep-seated crises of this period in Iranian history. Women and girls are the prime victims of the regime’s anti-woman ideology and policies.
These killings, more than isolated acts by fathers or husbands, are products of explicit and implicit legal permissions rooted in the reactionary ideology of the ruling regime—a regime that executes one person every three hours, refuses to criminalize violence against women, and offers no legal protection for those most at risk.
In conclusion, the alarming rate of femicide and so-called honor killings in Iran stems from the misogyny and entrenched patriarchy institutionalized in the laws of the clerical regime—a regime that will inevitably be overthrown by the Iranian people.
