By Pooya Stone
Two young Iranian women were murdered by their family members in the past week, reigniting the debate over honor killings in the country, which are sanctioned by the misogynist laws of the regime.
Reyhaneh Ameri, 22, was killed by her father on Monday for coming home late the previous night.
She’d arrived home at around 11:30 pm on Sunday and argued with her father. At some point between then and around 8.30 am when her sister stopped by to visit, Ameri was attacked by her father with an ax.
Her sister said that she got to the house between 8.30 and 9 am, but no one answered when she knocked, so she let herself in and found the house to be in disarray. A few minutes later, her father got home, denied knowing where anyone was, and went to his bedroom, where he changed his shirt before rushing out again.
Honor Killings Sanctioned by Law Take New Toll on #Iran Women#HumanRights @woman_kind https://t.co/8dVvSGi7O0
— IRAN HRM (@IranHrm) June 16, 2020
When her mother came home, she initially spun a story about Ameri still being in her room when the mother had left home that morning, but then confessed about the argument.
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The pair entered the locked bedroom to find Ameri missing, with blood covering the walls and the clothes that were strewn over the floor, which is when they called the police, who posited that Ameri was likely attacked with a missing ax by her father and dragged from her room to a car.
The police tracked Ameri’s phone to a nearby village while waiting for her father to return. They arrested him immediately when they found that the car boot was full of blood, but he got angry and denied knowing anything.
Police searched for Ameri with no luck until 11 pm, when her father finally admitted with a smile that he’d hit her in the head with an ax and revealed where he’d dumped her.
Ameri had died by the time her body was found, but a medical examiner said that she’d still been alive at 9 pm, having suffered for hours. If she’d been found sooner, she might still be alive.
The father previously told his wife that he would kill Ameri one day and tried to beat her to death in 2017, which she only survived because her sister intervened.
Fatemeh Barihi, 19, was beheaded by her husband on Saturday. She’d been forced to marry her abusive cousin just two years earlier and had tried to leave soon afterward. Her killer, Habib, 23, brought the bloody knife to the police station in Abadan and confessed.
This is not even the first time this has happened in the family. Barihi’s aunt was murdered by her brothers and her husband after filing for divorce due to her husband’s addiction.
It is likely that neither man will receive adequate punishment for these horrific murders by a government that promote misogyny. Murders that are three weeks after 13-year-old Romina Ashrafi was beheaded in her sleep by her father because Iranian law institutionalizes honor killings.
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