In the Iranian city of Ahvaz, a heinous crime took place recently where a man beheaded his 17-year-old wife, with the help of the victim’s brother, and proceeded to display her severed head in public.
This is just one of the many shocking murders of women in Iran. Over the past years, many such crimes have been committed, but only a few of them have been made public. This crime and many others like it have increased so much that the regime’s official media is forced to report them to highlight the extent of the violence against Iranian women.
According to the state-run daily Setareh-e Sobh, which reported this case on February 8, ‘women killing’ has become prevalent in the south region of the country, and “from the summer of 2019 until the summer of 2021 more than 60 cases of women killing have been reported. A point to consider is that among the killed are victims aged between 11 and 15.”
The state-run Shargh daily spoke about the increase in crimes against women across the country, writing, “Looking at the atrocities against women in recent years, whether reported publicly or hidden from the public, are not specific to one particular class. From Gilan to Khuzestan, from Sanandaj to Urmia, every corner of this country is witnessing women killing, and this shows that we are facing a more serious crisis than a counterculture or tribal-religious prejudice.”
The prevalence of such painful social catastrophes stems only from the degenerate ideology of the clerical regime and its misogynist policies, which has institutionalized dual repression against women such that crimes against women and killing them has become a common occurrence in every corner of the country.
In an article titled “A few words about the murder of women in Khuzestan,” the state-run daily Mostaghel wrote, “Let me write a few words here. Both from the suffering of being a woman and from the suffering of being an Arab in a society that examines all faults, sins, and mistakes entirely dependent on ethnicity, but deliberately prevents pointing the tip of the arrow at the government, sovereignty, and hidden and overt social factors.”
The paper added, “Those who tell us not to again defend the ‘savage Arabs beheading their wives’ are in reality, the invisible accomplices of the women killing. Because instead of questioning the anti-human and anti-woman laws, which have either been written before or are being written or produced or propagandized with the help of governments, they are pointing the tip of their arrows at the Baluchis, the Kurds, and the Arabs.”
The situation has become so tragic that this state-run daily was forced to criticize the regime’s social experts, who are searching for the reason for such events in ethnic problems. “Throwing the ball in the court of the ‘women killing Arabs’, ‘lizard-eating and girl killing Arabs’, ‘pride worshiping Arabs’, etc. who are people with civilized roots, is exactly complements the project whose ultimate end is internal repression,” it added.
In an article pointing to the responsibility of the regime, the state-run Hamdeli daily wrote, “The pillars of government are involved in these crises such as “judicial, governmental, seminary and clergy policymakers.”
Finally, the state-run daily Javan quoted the speeches of someone from social media on February 8, and wrote, “These things have become normal for the irresponsible officials. Every day, all kinds of crimes, murders, and rapes take place in this suffering country. But the biggest unsolved dilemma is how the irresponsible officials who have set the society slip into such a situation do not have a guilty conscience, how they sleep at night, and how they sing the victory anthem during the day and trash talks. Can anyone tell why???”
The fact is that since the onset of this regime and the establishment of the velayat-e-Faqih system (absolute rule of the clergy), its reactionary and misogynist culture has paved the way for such crimes against women. Women are the first victims of this system. This makes it even more imperative that it is overthrown as soon as possible.
