Filicide in Tabriz; Killer: I killed my son because he was rejected by social services for his feminine appearance

According to the "Rokna" website, a man in Tabriz killed his 17-year-old son named "Parsa" due to what he described as "feminine behavior and appearance" and then turned himself in to the police. The report states that the man announced that this teenager had been hospitalized at Razi Hospital for almost a month, but when he was discharged, he "continued the same previous behaviors." He added, "I decided to hand him over to social services, but unfortunately, they refused to accept him due to Parsa's condition." Arya Yekta, a non-binary trans activist, pointed out the "systematic trans-misogyny" in Iran, stating that this issue has led to a lack of understanding of the victim's sexual orientation and gender identity in the murder report, which is narrated from the killer's perspective. While family murders are defined under the category of "domestic violence," the forensic organization reported an increase in registered disputes in Iran last year, with about "75,000 cases" of domestic violence, including spousal and child abuse, recorded in 1400 (2021). Farzaneh Mahdizadeh, the director of the Clinical Examinations Office of the forensic organization, referred to approximately "600,000 registered disputes" in the forensic records of the Islamic Republic, describing this number as "very high" for a single year. In addition to the traditional and fanatical attitudes of some parts of society in certain regions of Iran, the legal system of the Islamic Republic criminalizes homosexuality and other sexual orientations of the LGBT community, imposing severe penalties including "execution" under Islamic penal laws. In such cases, the laws of the Islamic Republic not only fail to protect victims of violence but also, due to certain exemptions, such as the father being a "guardian" under Islamic law, perpetrators of violence against children and filicide cases remain unpunished. Samaneh Ghadrkhan, a journalist and child rights activist, previously stated in an interview with Voice of America regarding the issue of filicide in Iran: "The problem starts from the government's support for fathers who can easily kill their children." She emphasized the "deficiencies in the laws" of the Islamic Republic regarding family murders in Iran, reminding that the law considers the "father as the owner of the child" and does not deem the father a criminal in the case of child murder.