The past week in Iran has exposed a tragic crisis with the brutal killing of four women and the suicides of two teenage girls.
These incidents lay bare a disturbing pattern of femicides under the Iranian clerical regime. After over four decades of rule that began by enforcing compulsory hijab and systemically marginalizing women with deeply discriminatory laws, the murder of women has tragically become commonplace. This deeply troubling reality demands international attention and intervention to halt the ongoing violence against women in Iran.
The regime has refused to criminalize domestic violence, and its legal system often fails to proportionately punish violent crimes against women. Lacking social protections, women face normalized, rampant violence.
On November 2, 2024, in Maragheh, a city in northwestern Iran, the body of a young woman was discovered in the trunk of a car. She had been killed by her husband, who shot her with a pistol. The 23-year-old husband justified the murder as a result of “family disputes.”
On November 3, in a neighborhood in Hormozgan Province, southern Iran, a man used a knife to kill his wife. The woman’s identity remains unknown, but “family disputes” were again cited as the motive.
At around 4 a.m. on November 6 in Mashhad, a major northeastern city, a man named Javad R. struck his 53-year-old wife in the head with a pickaxe, in full view of their child. The woman, who sustained a severe head injury, was taken to Razavi Hospital in Mashhad, where her chances of survival are exceedingly slim.
A report on November 8 detailed the killing of Farideh Mahakki, a 25-year-old woman from the village of Rezabad in Ramian County, Golestan Province. She was brutally murdered by her father, grandfather, and uncle, who beat her and forced her to consume a lethal substance.
In a heartbreaking case involving a young Afghan girl in Iran, 16-year-old Arezou Khavari, a student at Kowsar High School in Shahr-e Rey (southern Tehran), took her own life on November 2.
After being threatened with expulsion by her school principal and vice principal for not observing the compulsory hijab, Arezou left the office, exited the school, and jumped from the sixth floor of a nearby building. Arezou’s father said, “We filed a complaint against the principal. This was not the first time they treated my daughter poorly. Last year, they even tried to deny her enrollment, using excuses like her having ‘too many friends’ or a few stray strands of hair.”
In another tragic incident, reported on November 9, 2024, 12th-grade student Aynaz Karimi from the village of Daris in Kazerun County (southern Iran) took her own life by hanging after being threatened with expulsion by her school’s principal for having painted nails and dyed hair. Aynaz’s funeral was held on October 31, 2024.
It’s crucial to clarify that the laws and attitudes of the clerical regime do not represent Iranian or Islamic culture.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran has called for an end to all forms of discrimination and coercion against women in Iran. The NCRI 12-point plan promises adherence to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women passed by the UN General Assembly in December 1993.
