A day after the world day against the death penalty, the Iranian regime executed at least the 109th women since moderate Hassan Rouhani became President in 2013. Iranian authorities performed the execution of this desperate woman at dawn on Sunday, October 11, in the Central Prison of Mashhad.

Thirty-seven-year-old Razieh, a female head of household, had been on death row for four years, following a murder that she committed out of poverty. Her execution is the result of the regime’s failure to categorize murders by degree.

This follows the executions of Mahtab Shafii, 32, on September 23 in Gohardasht Prison in Karaj and two women in the Central Prison of Mashhad on August 2 and 18.

Iran: Execution of 100 People in Less Than 6 Months; Ebrahim Raisi’s Human Rights Record

At least 4,300 people have been executed in Iran under Rouhani’s rule, including a minimum of 109 women and 38 juvenile offenders. The actual number of executions, particularly of women and children, is much higher, but the regime knows that this will make them look bad in the eyes of Iranians and the international community, so they disguise the figures. They carry out executions in secret at night and either forcibly disappear some inmates or make it look like they died through other means (i.e. suicide, an accident, a fight).

Despite their attempts to hide the true number of executions, the regime is still the leading executioner of people per capita and the leading executioner of women and juvenile offenders. What’s worse is that many of the women executed for murder were victims of domestic violence who committed murder in self-defense because there is no legal way for them to escape the abuse.

Women have no power to divorce without the permission of their husbands, something that a domestic abuser would not give, and even if they just left, the women would encounter more problems. For instance, their families may not take them back in because they may consider it more shameful for a wife to leave her husband than for a husband to hit his wife. Women also have no rights to their own children so they would have to leave them with the abuser.

Then, there are the problems faced by domestic abuse victims all over the world, such as shame, fear, and the reality that when they try to leave their abusers, the abuser may well kill them.

Summary of Repression and Human Rights Violations in Iran – July 2020

The Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) published a list of the women executed under Rouhani, based on reliable sources. The Iranian Resistance wants the death penalty to be abolished in Iran.