Teheran: man in Iran’s Ahvaz city has beheaded his seventeen-year-old wife on Saturday in front of people in Kasaei Square. The horrific incident took place on February 05 afternoon, when the man accompanied by his brother decapitated his wife in front of many people in a city square followed by parading the city with her head in his hand. In the visuals on social media, the man can be seen holding his wife’s head in one hand and a knife in the other hand.
The shocking incident was flagged by female journalists and women-rights activists on social media. The woman had reportedly fled to Turkey from Iran to avoid harassment, but she was brought back by her husband. According to news agency Rokna, the husband and his accomplice brother have been arrested by the local police after the incident.
The man had posed with the head of his wife at Kasaei Square in Ahvaz at around 3 PM on Saturday. However, after some time, he fled the spot after he was photographed by people present there. After getting reports of the incident, police launched a search operation and the man was arrested on the same day after a few hours. According to police, the man has said that he killed his wife due to some ‘family problems’. Police also have recovered the body of the woman from a house.
Talking about the incident, the Chief Justice of Khuzestan Province said, “Today a murder took place in Ahvaz and after that, the killer tried to show his heinous act in one of the streets of the city, which has damaged the psychological security of the citizens. With the efforts of the police and the issuance of the necessary judicial orders, the perpetrators of the murder were identified and arrested hours after the incident. The judiciary of the province will deal decisively and quickly with the accused of this incident.”
An independent rights group IranTrue.com has alleged that state-supported media groups have engaged in victim-blaming after the shocking incident took place. According to Iran True, the media network of the IRGC (The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the Iranian armed forces) is blaming the victim wife for having “provocative photos”. Apparently, a prosecutor from the city is also looking for the person who took the video and thus spread the news.
However, under the hashtag ‘Let us Talk’ several women journalists, human rights groups and women on Twitter have called out the prevailing extremism in Iran against the targeting and honour killing of women. Activists are calling out forceful compulsion of hijabs, discrimination against women, and atrocities backed by violent Islamist policies.
Last year in May, a gay man was beheaded by members of his own family members in the same city of Ahwaz. The rising incidents of Islamic extremism leading towards beheadings remains a concern in Iran. While women rights activities are calling out hard Islamism in Iran over rising atrocities against women, its tremours in breaking the social order are felt in India too. In Karnataka, where the authorities are asking for following an equal code over following school uniforms, ironically, Islamic sympathizers in India are calling it out terming ‘Hijab’ as a personal individual right and a personal choice.
Be it the honour killing of an adolescent wife in Iran or murder of Kishan Bharwad over offensive social media posts, the institutionalised subjugation of the law and order by normalization of Islamic extremism remains a cause of concern all over the globe.