Category: News and Views
Tehran, Iran, Jan. 07 – An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally
killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece.
The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their
boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005.
Nazanin, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, said that after the three men started to throw stones at them, the two girls’ boyfriends quickly
escaped on their motorbikes leaving the pair helpless.
She described how the three men pushed her and her 16-year-old niece Somayeh onto the ground and tried to rape them, and said that she took out a knife
from her pocket and stabbed one of the men in the hand.
As the girls tried to escape, the men once again attacked them, and at this point, Nazanin said, she stabbed one of the men in the chest. The teenage girl,
however, broke down in tears in court as she explained that she had no intention of killing the man but was merely defending herself and her younger niece
from rape, the report said.
The court, however, issued on Tuesday a sentence for Nazanin to be hanged to death.
Last week, a court in the city of Rasht, northern Iran, sentenced Delara Darabi to death by hanging charged with murder when she was 17 years old. Darabi
has denied the charges.
In August 2004, Iran’s Islamic penal system sentenced a 16-year-old girl, Atefeh Rajabi, to death after a sham trial, in which she was accused of committing
“acts incompatible with chastity”.
The teenage victim had no access to a lawyer at any stage and efforts by her family to retain one were to no avail. Atefeh personally defended herself and
told the religious judge that he should punish those who force women into adultery, not the victims. She was eventually hanged in public in the northern
town of Neka.
while these stores are shocking to our western minds, in iran are they that shocking? Maybe a few years ago, this kind of thing wouldn't have happened, as they had a reformist administration, which looked to the west. Now the fundimentalists are back, and I don't hold out much hope for the women in Iran.
disgusting! I abhor the debasement of women by Islam, the religion should be abolished.
this just makes me sick! .. that poor girl was only deffending herself and her niece for crying out loud! this is just outragious! what a cruel cruel world! *sigh*
This made me feel ill. I am so sick of this shit! can't anything be done to stop this from happening? What the fuck gives them the right to do this? It's totally wrong. There is no justification for acts like this. none at all. I feel sorry for the people who have to live with these injustices and have little or no voice or way to stop them.