On December 20, Iran’s regime executed Samira Sabzian, a child bride who was convicted of “intentional murder” of her husband and sentenced to “qisas” (retribution in kind), in Karaj’s Qezel Hesar Prison.
For years, Samira Sabzian had been a victim of gender apartheid, child marriage, and domestic violence, and today she became a victim of the execution machinery of a dictatorial and corrupt regime that has only kept itself alive through killing and intimidation. The regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei and other officials of the Iranian regime must be held accountable for this crime.
According to reports, the execution of Samira Sabzian was scheduled to take place on December 13, but it was postponed after widespread coverage and the reaction of civil society.
According to human rights sources, Samira Sabzian was forced into marriage at the age of 15. According to her relatives, she had been a victim of domestic violence by her husband.
In December 2014, she was arrested in Malard city, Tehran province, on charges of murdering her husband. She was sentenced to death. Since then, she was held in Gharchak Prison, Varamin. Mrs. Sabzian was only 19 years old at the time of her arrest.
At the time of the murder, Samira Sabzian had two children. She was deprived of seeing them for the past 10 years since her imprisonment.
She met her children for the last time before the execution was carried out, which was the first meeting with her children in these years.
Since the beginning of the current calendar year, at least 20 women prisoners have been executed in Iranian regime prisons. Samira Sabzian is the 21st woman to be executed by the Iranian regime this year. Iran continues to hold the record for the highest number of executions of women worldwide.
