Women and the death penalty in modern
|
The comparison between modern British girls and
modern Iranian girls living less than 3,000 miles apart could hardly be more
stark.
In
In
It is claimed by feminist and human
rights groups that
The 1979 Revolution and
the 1980’s.
Under
the rule of the former Shah, a small number of women were hanged, mostly for
murder, using the British style long drop method. The Shah was deposed in 1979
and replaced by a fundamentalist Muslim regime led by Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini. He won a huge democratic majority for the formation of an Islamic
Republic on April the 1st, 1979. Under the new government, women were required
to wear the veil, western music and alcohol were banned, and the punishments
prescribed by Sharia law came into force.
Male
and female executions became frequent – often for refusing to convert/recognise
Islam or for being a member of an anti-regime political group.
There are no accurate records of
just how many men, women and girls were executed in the first years of the
Revolution. There is a credible list of 14,028 names available and some sources
claim figures of several tens of thousands, although these are not
substantiated with names. According to a report published by the Organisation of Women Against
Execution in Iran, at least 2,000 women were executed between June 1981 and
1990. They have been able to prepare a list containing 1,428 names. 187 of
these women were under the age of 18, with 9 girls under the age of 13 and 14
between the ages of 45 to 70. The youngest girl executed was just 10 years old.
Thirty two of these women were reported to have been pregnant at the time of
their execution. Many of those executed were high school and college students.
Hanging was the most common method of execution for women, although some were
shot. (Large numbers of men were shot during this period.) Men and women were hanged in large groups in
Tehran prisons from cranes and forklift trucks. Each crane jib or forklift had
a wooden or steel beam to which the noose was attached and when the
preparations were complete, the prisoners were simply hoisted into the air.
Under Revolutionary law, young girls who were
sentenced to death could not be executed if they were still virgins. Thus, they
were "married off" to Revolutionary Guards and prison officials in
temporary marriages and then raped before their execution, to prevent them
going to heaven. The Mullahs believed that these women were ungodly and did not
deserve paradise in the next life and that if they were deprived of their
virginity, it would ensure that they went to hell. Therefore, on the
night prior to execution, the condemned girl was injected with a tranquilliser
and then raped by her guard(s). After the execution, the religious judge at the
prison would write out a marriage certificate and send it to the victim's
family along with a box of sweets.
Generally
details of executions from the early years of the Revolution are hard to find,
the Borumand website lists 123 female hangings in Iran between 1980 and 1999, together
with 171 executions by shooting and 8 by stoning. To search this website click here. The case of the 10 women hanged in Shiraz in
1983 is well documented, however.
The “crime”
of these women was to believe in the Bahá'í religion instead of Islam and to
believe in the equality of men and women. These were considered to be very
dangerous concepts by the Revolutionary regime who had them arrested and
tortured in an effort to persuade them to convert into Islam. Several of them
were subjected to the "bastinado" - beating on the soles of their
feet. They were all given the opportunity to avoid execution by recanting
their faith and converting to Islam but none of them chose to.
On the night of June the 18th,1983, they were driven in a bus to a polo field
on the outskirts of Shiraz where a gallows had been set up. The bus driver who
took them there reported that they seemed to be in good spirits, singing on the
way and prepared to meet their fate.
The
youngest prisoner was Mona Mahmudnizhad, who was just 17 years old. Her father
had been hanged some months earlier for his beliefs. At the execution ground,
she asked to be hanged last so that she could pray for all the other women.
Reportedly, she kissed the noose and recited a prayer before she was
suspended.
The other 9 members of the group were :
23 year old Roya Ishraqi, a promising veterinary student, was executed with her
50 year old mother, Izzad Janami Ishraqi.
20 year old Akhtar Sabit, a graduate nurse, who had taught children’s religious
classes.
28 year old
Mahshid Nirumand was a physics graduate from the University of Shiraz. She is
said to have remained resolute in prison and to have shared her food with the
others and encouraged them to remain firm.
Shirin
Dalvand was 25 years old and held a degree in sociology from the University of
Shiraz. Shirin was an expert in the Baha'i faith. Under interrogation, she was
asked whether she would ever give up her religion - she told her questioner
that she would hold to her faith."
Until my death, I hope that the divine mercy will enable me to remain
firm to the last breath of my life ".
Tahirih
Siyavushi was a 32 year old nurse, who had been a member of the Local Spiritual
Assembly of Shiraz. Her husband, Jamshid, had been hanged two days earlier. As
a nurse, Tahirih helped to look after the other prisoners.
20 year old
Simin Sabiri, who had been a member of the Committee of Studies Baha' ies of
Shiraz.
Zarrin
Muqimi was 28 years old and also very knowledgeable about her faith defending
it vigorously under interrogation.
The oldest
of the 10 was 54 year old Mrs Nosrat Yalda'I who had belonged to the Spiritual
Local Assembly of Shiraz and whose house was regarded as the "nerve centre"
of the Community life Baha' ie in Shiraz. She had been viciously whipped during
her time in prison and her wounds were still visible after her hanging. Both
her husband and her son, Bahram had also been executed.
The town’s
people of Shiraz groups brought flowers to the mortuary to honour the bravery
of these women, despite the dangers of such a protest. The Bahá'í religion is
still considered dangerous by the regime and is suppressed.
Click here for photos of these 10 brave women (large
file).
Dina
Parnabi was an Iranian high school student, accused of smuggling forbidden
literature and criticising the regime in her talks with her classmates. She was
hanged on the 10th of July 1984 in a Teheran prison. The hanging was done in private
and after the execution was over, her body was stripped, washed and delivered
for dissection at medical school. In Iran, female bodies delivered for medical
studies often show the rope or cable burns around their necks, indicating that
they were all executed by hanging.
Hangings of
women, mostly in their 20’s and 30’s, seemed to reach a peak in 1988, with no
less than 95 traced by the Borumand Foundation.
Through the
1900’s, reported female executions were rare but in the 21st century they have
begun to rise.
In 2004, it is thought that 4 women
have been hanged, 3 in public. A further 2 women were hanged in private during
2005. Shooting is no longer used and
short drop or suspension hanging in private or public is now the norm. At least
2 women are thought to be facing stoning at the time of writing in January
2006, although it is probable that their sentences will be commuted to hanging.
It is notable that public execution is increasingly used for both sexes and
most of the 95 executions that I recorded in Iran during 2004 were carried out
in public. Flogging prior to execution is not unusual, although it is unclear
whether this is applied to women.
Here are the names the women who
have been put to death in Iran in the 21st century. All executions were carried out by hanging
unless otherwise specified.
|
Name |
Age |
Crime |
Date of execution |
|
Masoumeh Fathi |
- |
Murder |
26/01/2000 |
|
Alieh Moradi |
- |
Murder |
26/01/2000 |
|
Fariba Tajiani Emamqoli |
30 |
Drugs |
19/03/2001 (in public) |
|
Maryam Ayoubi |
32 |
Murder & adultery |
Stoned to death |
|
Parvin Mirzaei |
35 |
Murder |
03/07/2001 |
|
Jamileh Assadpour |
37 |
Murder |
12/09/2001 |
|
Saeedeh Qassempour Malayeri |
- |
Murder |
18/09/2001 |
|
Nasrin C. |
- |
Murder |
08/10/2002 |
|
Unnamed |
- |
Murder |
16/10/2002 |
|
Zahra Baghshirin & Farahnaz Yuly |
- |
Murder |
29/12/2002 (in public) |
|
Zinat al-Sadat |
34 |
Murder |
08/10/2003 |
|
Unnamed woman |
- |
Brothel keeping |
25/01/2004 |
|
Diba Zomorodian |
- |
- |
29/06/2004 (in public) |
|
Monireh Ghasempour |
- |
- |
11/07/2004 (in public) |
|
Atefeh Rajabi |
16 |
Moral/sex crimes (having sex outside marriage) |
15/08/2004 (in public) |
|
Roya |
28 |
Murder of former husband |
06/07/2005 (hanged in Isfahan prison with her boyfriend) |
|
Akram N. |
20 |
Murder of older woman |
08/12/05 (hanged in prison in Shirevan) |
|
Raheleh |
|
Robbery/murder of woman & daughter |
|
|
Farzaneh Sadeqi |
|
Murder |
03/05/06 (hanged in public) |
|
M.M. |
|
Murder of husband |
20/05/06 (hanged in prison with her male co-defendant) |
|
Houriyeh |
29 |
Murder of husband and in-laws |
|
|
Fakhteh C |
30 |
Murder of her employer |
|
|
Zahra N |
|
Murder of husband |
|
|
Raheleh Zamani |
27 |
Murder of husband |
|
Let us have a look at the individual cases of
these women.
Everyone of them died a painful and humiliating death, there being no effort
made to minimise their suffering or make their execution in any way humane.
Pictures of Fariba Tajiani-Emamqoli’s hanging and those of male prisoners show
that an American style coiled noose made from modern nylon rope is used and
that the prisoner is either stood on a box which is pulled from under them or
hoisted into the air by a crane jib as happened with Fariba and 16 year old
Atefeh Rajabi.
The first
execution took place on the 26th of January 2000 when Masoumeh Fathi was hanged
in the northwestern city of Tabriz for killing a prison warder during an escape
attempt. On the same day, Alieh Moradi and her male accomplice, Farhang Moradi,
were hanged in Kermanshah in western Iran, for the murder of Alieh’s husband.
Her children were present in the prison grounds to watch their mother
die. Both executions took place within the prisons.
The first
public hanging took place at dawn on the 19th of March 2001 when 30 year old
Fariba Tajiani-Emamqoli and 4 men were put to death for drug trafficking in
Tehran. Fariba was attended by a woman prison officer and was blindfolded and
had her hands tied behind her back. Like most public hangings nowadays,
the hydraulic crane of a small recovery vehicle was used to hoist her into the
air. The whole process took 25 minutes, with the bodies being left
hanging for 10 minutes before being taken down.
A crowd of about 200 gathered to witness the event and chanted
"Allah akbar" - God is great and "death to the traffickers,
death to the traffickers."
Click here
for a series of photos of Fariba’s execution, in order 1 2 3 & 4.
35 year old
Parvin Mirzaei suffered a similar fate in public in Kouhdasht in southwestern
Iran on the 3rd of July 2001, having been convicted of killing a 65 year old
woman in 1997. It said Mirzaei attacked the woman because she was afraid she
had learned of her decision to run away from home. Mirzaei then fled to
Nahavand, a city in western Iran, before she was arrested.
Iran also
uses stoning to death as punishment for women and this horrific fate was meted
out to 32 year old Maryam Ayoubi, who was stoned on Wednesday, the 11th of July 2001, within Tehran's Evin
prison. Maryam had confessed to poisoning her husband with soup and then
stabbing him to death with the assistance of her lover, who was hanged on the
same day.
Women who
are to be stoned are buried up to their shoulders in the ground and their head
covered with a cloth. The law specifies the size of the stones that are
then hurled at their heads until they die from their injuries.
37 year old
Jamileh Assadpour, who had strangled to death an old woman before robbing her
house, was hanged in Tehran's Qasr Prison on the 12th of September 2001.
On the 18th of September 2001, Saeedeh
Qassempour Malayeri and her lover Amir-Hossein Fadaie were to be hanged in Qasr
Prison for the murder of her husband. However, Fadaie won a last minute
reprieve and only Saeedeh was hanged.
Nasrin C. was hanged at dawn inside
the prison at Tabriz on the 8th of October 2002, having been convicted of the
murder of her sister-in-law.
On the 29th
of December 2002, Zahra Baghshirin and Farahnaz Yuly were hanged within the
prison in Gachsaran in southwestern Iran. They were condemned for taking part
in the murder of the husband of a friend, who escaped with a 3-year jail term
as she was not present at the time of the crime.
34 year old
Zinat al-Sadat, a nurse, was hanged in a Tehran prison on the 8th of October
2003, having been convicted of strangling a 70 year old man and his 11 year old
grandson in 1999. She had been employed to look after him and had killed him in
order to rob him.
On the 25th of
January 2004, an unnamed woman who had been convicted of running a brothel, was
hanged in the northern city of Qazvin. She was given 80 lashes prior to her execution.
It was claimed that she had been luring young girls and women into
prostitution, and that she also made pornographic films involving her staff and
clients while a search of her brothel turned up alcohol.
An unnamed 27
year old woman was hanged in Ghazvin prison on Sunday, the 1st of July 2004 for
the murder of her 78 year old father-in-law. In court, she had said she was
constantly insulted by him. She was newly married and was living in her
father-in-law’s house.
Monireh Ghasempour was reportedly
hanged in public in Tehran on the 11th of July 2004, but the details of her
crime are unknown.
Diba Zomorodian, a microbiology
student was hanged in Qazvin (western Iran) on the 29th of June 2004, again
there being no details of her crime. It is thought that an unnamed woman was
hanged in Qazvin on July 12th, 2004.
A truly scandalous execution took place on
Sunday, August the 15th, 2004, when 16 year old Atefeh Rajabi was hanged in
public in the town of Neka. Atefeh was executed for “engaging in acts incompatible
with chastity.”
Atefeh was not represented by a lawyer at her trial and efforts by her family
to recruit a lawyer was to no avail. She had to defend herself and told the
religious judge, Haji Rezaie, that he should punish the main perpetrators of
moral corruption and not the victims. She further enraged the judge by removing
some of her clothing (probably just her headscarf) and he accused her of having
a “sharp tongue.” It is claimed that he
pursued her execution beyond all normal procedures and finally gained the
approval of the Supreme Court and the chief of the nation’s “judiciary branch.”
Her age was given in official court documents as 22 but her birth certificate
has been viewed by reliable sources and shows she really was just 16. Click here for her prison photo.
At the place of execution in the town’s square, the judge personally put the
rope around the girl’s neck and gave the signal to the crane operator to begin
her hanging.
Witnesses reported that she begged for mercy and had to be dragged kicking and
screaming to the execution truck. She repeatedly shouted,
"repentance" which, according to Islamic law, is supposed to grant
the accused the right to an immediate stay of execution while an appeal is
heard.
Judge Haji Rezaie said he was pleased to hang her and is quoted as saying,
"Society has to be kept safe from acts against public morality." Her
body was left dangling from the crane for some time so people could see what
happened to teenagers who committed acts incompatible with chastity.
It should be noted that, according to the Islamic Republic’s penal code, the
presence of an attorney for the defense is mandatory regardless of the
defendant’s ability to afford one.
Nevertheless, Atefeh did not get an attorney, despite the efforts of her
father to raise money for one. Atefeh’s boyfriend, who had been arrested
as well, received 100 lashes and was afterwards released.
So what was
Atefeh’s “crime”? It would seem that it amounted to having sex with her
boyfriend. According to judicial records, Atefeh had 5 previous
convictions for having sex with unmarried men. For each offence, she had been
jailed and flogged. She confided in her friends that she had been abused
by the guards in prison. A lawsuit is being brought by Shadi Sadr, a lawyer
representing the Rajabi family, against the judiciary for wrongful
execution. Sadr is also trying to bring a murder charge against the
judge, Haji Rezaie.
On the 6th of July, Roya, 28, (female) and
Mohammad, 30, (male) were hanged inside the prison in the central Iranian city
of
Apparently, Roya had agreed to a "temporary marriage," permitted
under Iranian law, to Mohammad Kouhpayeh, her employer. When the marriage
contract expired, she married another man, also called Mohammad. Roya demanded
that her former husband return some photos but he refused, and she and her new
husband murdered him in 1999.
Akram N., a 20 year old
Iranian woman, was hanged in prison in the northeastern town of
Women on death row.
Kobra Rahmanpour, aged 22, convicted of
murdering her mother.
Najmeh Vosouq-Razavi, a law student from
Hajiyeh Esma’eilvand, 30, sentenced to stoning for adultery with an unnamed 17
year old boy.
Shahla Jahed, aged 28, condemned for the murder of her lover’s wife.
Faeze A. (no other details available)
Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajou, aged 33, who killed her husband who had raped their
daughter.
Kobra Najjar (44) who has been in prison for over 10 years, having been
sentenced to 8 years for her part in the murder of her husband and stoning to
death for adultery. She claims that she was forced into prostitution by her
husband, a heroin addict who was violent towards her. In 1995, she persuaded
one of her regular customers to kill her husband, after a severe beating by
him. She is in prison in
Soghra Mola’i was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment in January 2004 for being
an accomplice to the murder of her husband Abdollah, and to death by stoning
for adultery. She is in Reja'i Shahr
prison,
Parisa was sentenced to be stoned in June 2004 for adultery in
Leyla Mafi, aged 18,
sentenced for moral offences.
Sara (no other details available)
Tayyebeh (no other details available)
Shahnaz, aged 35. (no other details available)
19 year old
Hajar Vafi from the town of
On
On
It should
be noted that all death sentences in
2006 developments.
Delaraa
Daraabi, aged 19, was condemned to hang for a murder committed when she was
17. She and her boyfriend stabbed to
death one of her female relatives during an attempted robbery. She denies
murder.
A 22 year old woman, identified only by her first name Afsaneh, was
sentenced to death by hanging along with two men in the city of Qazvin on
Thursday, the 5th of January 2006. Afsaneh was accused of seducing the men to
murder her husband. She was 18 at the time.
On
On
Farzaneh Sadeqi was publicly hanged on Wednesday the 3rd of May in western
On Sunday the 21st of May, 2006 it was reported that a woman named Mahboubeh M. and a man was identified as Abbass H. were hanged in Iran’s north-eastern province of Khorassan-Razavi having been convicted of murdering the woman’s husband. It was reported in November by a state run newspaper that the couple were in fact stoned to death and not hanged.
It is claimed that 4 women were hanged on the 12th of June, although I have not been able to confirm this. 3 are unidentified and were said to have been hanged in Chobindar Prison in the city of Qazvin, west of Tehran, having been convicted of drug offences. The fourth was identified as Farzaneh Youzan, who was hanged in a prison in southeastern town of Iranshahr, presumably for murder.
On July the 28th 2006 Shamameh Ghorbani, aka Malek, aged 34,
was sentenced to death by stoning by a court in Orumieh. She was convicted of
adultery and is currently in a prison in the town of
2007 Developments.
On Saturday the 14th of July a 29 year old woman,
who’s name was only given as Houriyeh was publicly hanged in north-western
On Wednesday the 17th of October 30 year old Fakhteh C. was hanged for the
murder of her employer, in private within
On Wednesday the 19th of December Zahra N. was hanged in private within
2008 Developments.
27 year old mother of two, Raheleh Zamani was hanged in
On the 27th of August
Comment.
There seems to be
considerable contradictions between the Iranian government’s “official line”
and the allegations of human rights groups as to what is actually happening in
the country. There have been reports of death sentences passed on juveniles and
of stoning sentences passed on women, despite assurances to the International
Community that this horrific practice had ended in 2002. In January 2005,
at a weekly briefing for journalists to which some
foreign media correspondents were invited, judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimirad,
dismissed the allegations saying that, "in the Islamic Republic, we no
longer face such verdicts and implementation of such verdicts." "I do
not know how they get such baseless information and then make a fuss over it.
The aim of such news is to harm Iran's image." There also seems to be a
dichotomy between what senior ministers are saying for foreign consumption and
what is going on at “ground level” with Islamic judges.
The head of Iran's judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi, quashed a
stoning sentence for a woman convicted of adultery on October the 18th, 2004.
Seema had been sentenced to stoning and 100 lashes for adultery and 15 years in
prison for being an accomplice in her husband's murder. Her husband had been
murdered by her lover. Shahrudi also reprieved a woman convicted of murdering
and chopping up her husband in the same month.
The United Nations condemned Iran's
record on public executions, floggings, arbitrary sentences, torture and
discrimination against women, in a resolution in December 2004. Many
other bodies have done the same. You will find endless websites
condemning Iran’s human rights record.
So what are we to believe? I continue to monitor the situation and update this
page with events as they happen. Individual executions are reported
monthly.
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