Monthly Report May 2020
Thousands of Rominas in Iran are defenseless victims of the savage laws of the clerical regime
In the last week of May, the harrowing murder of Romina Ashrafi, 14, by her father enraged the public opinion across Iran and abroad.
The Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) declared in a statement that Iran’s ruling mullahs are responsible for the murder of this young woman, as their oppressive and medieval policies and laws encourage and promote violence against women and girls, and facilitate such crimes.
The responsibility of the regime’s officials in honor killings becomes evident where the law institutionalizes extra-judicial executions by family members.
Article 630 of the State Punishment Book stipulates that a woman can be instantly murdered if her husband finds her while having sexual relation with another man.
Article 630: Whenever a man finds his wife during adultery with another man and is sure of his wife’s consent in doing so, he can instantly kill both of them.
Also Article 301 of the Punishment Law states that retribution for the murderer, i.e. execution, is applicable only if the murderer is not the father or paternal grandfather of the victim. (The Islamic Punishment Law adopted in April 2013)
It must be noted that the adoption of such laws as well as unfair trials come into play after a plethora of miseries and misfortunes the mullahs’ regime has imposed on the people of Iran for more than 40 years.
Rampant poverty, inadequate education, limited access to information, and promotion of a misogynous culture by all media, text books, radio and television, and even movies, coupled with the common practice of violence in the streets and the scenes of public flogging and execution to create an atmosphere of terror and repression and fend off popular uprisings, lead to circumstances which legitimize honor killings and make murderers out of fathers and brothers.
