In the end, Samira Sabzian was hanged. Last night, activists hoped that the Islamic Republic would not be an Islamic Republic this time by pardoning the young 32-year-old woman who had waited for a week on death row in Qarchak Prison in southern Tehran. But at dawn, after the call for morning prayer, Samira was killed by the executioner at the brutal hand of the Ayatollah regime.
The execution of the sentence was scheduled for December 13, but the Iranian authorities decided to postpone it for a week. The reason is unclear, but international pressure is believed to have held back the regime, which prefers to operate quietly.
In 2013, Samira was arrested on charges of killing her husband. She was a violent man whom she married at the age of 15. For example: In Iran, if an abused woman asks for help, the police are not allowed to enter the house. If she runs away, the judges must “return” her to her abusive husband.
Samira was a child bride and had two children from this forced marriage, whom she left very young: one was seven years old, the other only six months old. During those ten years in prison, he never got to meet her.
A week ago, a few hours before she imagined herself hanging from the arm of the Islamic Republic's crane, her two adult children went to say goodbye to her and look into her eyes for the first time. She refused to even watch them grow behind the glass of the prison because she believed and hoped that this was the only way to gain forgiveness from her husband's family.
Under Iranian law, the victim's relatives can decide whether or not to grant a pardon. But in the end, even the most painful sacrifice they could make wasn't enough, and they chose death by death.
“The silence of the last few days has been fatal for Samira,” Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, founder of the Oslo-based NGO Iran Human Rights, told the Courier. “The international community doesn't seem to understand that the dictatorship is doing whatever it wants when it turns off the lights on our country.” Amiry-Moghaddam again: “With these stories, it's important not to blame the victim's family. “In doing so, we are playing into the hands of the Islamic Republic, which places responsibility on its citizens. The only executioners are those who use executions to terrorize the people.” For years Samira was a victim of gender apartheid, “child marriage and domestic violence, today she is the victim of the murder machine of an incompetent and corrupt regime,” Amiry-Moghaddam wrote.
Iran holds the world record for executing women: 17 people were hanged in 2023. Last year, marked by protests following the assassination of Mahsa Amini, 702 people were executed, almost a hundred more than the previous year. In November 79.
Samira's story also tells of another injustice that occurs with the regime's approval: the phenomenon of child brides. The legal marriage age for girls is 13, but if their father or paternal grandfather approves, they can marry much earlier.