It Was Not Suicide, It Was Murder; 15-Year-Old Rahila Was Killed by Her Father

On Sunday, the Etemad newspaper reported that Rahila, a 15-year-old girl who was said to have committed 'suicide', was actually murdered by her 'parents'. On Thursday, July 13, news of a girl's suicide named 'Rahila' from the suburbs of Khoy was circulated on social media. It was reported that Rahila, after an argument with her husband, returned to her father's house and ended her life by hanging. Now, after a few days, Etemad has reported that Rahila's father confessed to the murder of his daughter for 'unspecified reasons' after interrogation. Rahila's father stated that he, in collusion with his wife, killed his teenage daughter, but they have not yet disclosed the reasons behind the incident. It has been reported that Rahila was married at the age of 12 to a man from the suburbs of Urmia at her parents' insistence. Before she was murdered, she had returned to her father's house due to family disputes with her husband, where she was suffocated with a piece of cloth by her parents and killed. The murder of daughters and wives by male family members under the pretext of what is called 'honor' is rooted in Iran. Many legal experts consider the 'legal vacuum' to be a factor in this 'femicide'. According to the laws of the Islamic Republic, the father of the victim, due to the right of blood, is practically immune and can evade maximum punishment regarding the fate of his child's murder. According to Islamic Penal Code in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the punishment for 'murder' is 'qisas', but according to Article 630 of the Islamic Penal Code, 'if a man sees his wife committing adultery with a foreign man and knows that the woman is consenting, he can kill them both at that moment, and if the woman is coerced, he can only kill the man.' Pegah Bani Hashemi previously emphasized the role of unequal laws in 'honor' killings and violence against women in Iran in an interview with Voice of America. According to official statistics published by the Shargh newspaper, there have been '165 cases of femicide' across Iran in the past two years; that is, on average, one woman is killed by male family members every four days. According to official statistics, over 65% of femicide cases in Iran are committed by husbands, and over 10% of these murders are committed by brothers. Nearly 8% of femicides are committed by fathers, and 5.5% are committed by sons against their mothers. According to the same report, about 11% of femicides are committed by other male family members. The father of Donya Rezayi was released just a week after killing his daughter, while the father of Romina Ashrafi, who beheaded his 14-year-old daughter, was sentenced to 9 years in prison and ordered to pay blood money, as well as 2 years in prison for disturbing public opinion. Mona Heydari's husband, a child bride aged 17, who publicly displayed her severed head, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for the public aspect of the case and eight months for 'intentional assault'.