IRAN
On February 3, 1984, Khomeini said: "Killing is a
form of mercy because it
rectifies the person. Sometimes a person cannot be
reformed unless they are
cut up and burnt....You must kill, burn and lock
up those in opposition."
To survive, the clerical rulers must kill the thirst
for freedom in all
human beings, or they will reject its monopoly on
power. With its cruel
massacres, stoning and hangings in public, the regime
wants to instill
despair in the lives of all Iranians. For this reason,
100,000 Iranians,
among them tens of thousands of women, have been
executed and another
150,000 have been incarcerated, and subjected to
74 forms of physical and
psychological tortures.
While no sector of Iranian society is immune to the
mullahs' oppression,
the sharpest edge of this misogynous rule's savagery
is directed at Iranian women.
The clerics have systematically launched one crackdown
after another on
women, arresting, beating, flogging and torturing
tens of thousands on the
pretext of combating mal-veiling, enjoining good
and prohibiting vice. This
terror is extended into every household through severe
restrictions on
women, and vicious punishments for infractions. Regardless
of economic or
educational level, ethnic or religious background,
political or personal
outlook, no Iranian family can escape the pervasive
threat of violence to
its female members.
As the U.N. Special Rapporteur on violence against
women reported on
November 22, 1994, certain practices and sanctions
"which are violent
towards women are justified by special legislation.
The public stoning and
lashing of women serve to institutionalize violence
against women."
Violence against women is the only sphere where there
is no discrimination
between men and women. If anything, there is a policy
of reverse
discrimination, and women are treated more viciously.
The mullahs show a
particular vengeance towards women who become politically
active and join
the resistance. Tens of thousands have been arrested
on political charges
and severely tortured and executed. Many have died
under torture.
One method is particularly revealing: the Pasdaran
(Guards Corps) fire a single
bullet into the womb of the condemned women political
prisoners, leaving
them to bleed to death in a slow process of excruciating
pain. Even
pregnant women have not been spared. Hundreds, including
Massoumeh
Qajar-Azdanloo, Azar Reza'i, Zahra Nozari, Nayyereh
Khosravi and Parvin
Mostofi, have been executed with their unborn children.
The Iranian regime is a signatory to the International
Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights. According to article 6 of the
Covenant, the execution
of individuals under the age of 18 as well as pregnant
women is prohibited.
Disregarding their international commitments, the
mullahs have shown no
qualms about executing women of all ages; from adolescents
like
Fatemeh Mesbah, aged just 13
Maryam Ghodsi-Maab, 16;
Ezzat Mesbah, 15;
Mojgan Jamshidi,14;
and Nooshin Emami, 16;
to 70-year-old grandmothers like Ettesamossadat
Karbasi; Arasteh Qolivand, 56; Soqra Davari, 54;
and Massoumeh Shadmani, 50.
Maryam Ghodsi-Mo'ab, a 16-year-old high school student
activist, was
arrested and went through extreme torture in the
southern city of Ahwaz.
She was executed on October 1981. Her burial permit
read:
Islamic Republic of Iran Coroner's Office "Burial
Permit" This document,
authorizes the burial of Maryam, daughter of Mohammad
Kazem Ghodsi-Mo'ab,
aged 16, whose death on 7th October 1981 resulted
from eight bullets
entering her chest, eight her back and one her head.
(Executed by the
Revolutionary Court.)
Pazhuheshi Sediqeh Sadeqpour, a political activist,
was arrested and severely
tortured. She was released from jail when her legs
became paralyzed, but
later rearrested and again savagely tortured. Her
eyes were gouged out and
she was killed in Shiraz on November 4, 1985, when
her throat was cut. She
was 20 years old.
Mina Mohammadian was executed on February 29, 1987,
on political charges.
She was held in solitary confinement for eleven months
prior to her
execution. During that period, she went through forty
interrogation
sessions, during which she was subjected to the most
horrendous tortures.
She was repeatedly raped by the regime's Guards.
She was 22 at the time of
her execution by a single bullet in the back of her
head.
Women political prisoners are kept in so-called "residential
units" (cement
cages, 50 cm square), often naked and with their
heads cramped down onto their knees, for
months at a time. They are beaten regularly, up to
50 times a day. Another
common torture of women political prisoners, besides
systematic flogging,
is suspension for hours from the ceiling by the hands,
or upside down, by
the feet. In some cases, the torture leads first
to paralysis, then to the
woman's death.
Nahid Shahrokhi- Mahalati, a 22-year-old teacher,
was
suspended from the ceiling for a prolonged period.
She died under torture.
Exceptions are not made for foreign nationals. Annie
Ezbar, a French nurse
who had come to the assistance of the Iranian Resistance's
National
Liberation Army, was captured in an ambulance with
her medical equipment.
Hashemi Rafsanjani, then the regime's parliament
speaker, acknowledged her
arrest. After going through extensive torture, Mrs.
Ezbar was executed.
According to a "religious" decree, virgin women prisoners
must as a rule be
raped before their execution, "lest they go to Paradise."
Therefore, the
night before execution, a Guard rapes the condemned
woman. After her
execution, the religious judge at the prison writes
out a marriage
certificate and sends it to the victim's family,
along with a box of
sweets. In a written confession in January 1990,
Sarmast Akhlaq Tabandeh, a
senior Guards Corps interrogator, recounted one such
case in Shiraz prison:
"Flora Owrangi, an acquaintance of one of my friends
was one such victim.
The night before her execution, the resident mullah
in the prison conducted
a lottery among the members of the firing squads
and prison officials to
determine who would rape her. She was then forcibly
injected with
anesthesia ampoules, after which she was raped. The
next day, after she was
executed, the mullah in charge wrote a marriage certificate
and the Guard
who raped her took that along with a box of sweets
to her parents."
Violence against women
The penal code subjects women to extreme penalties
if they do not comply
with dress codes laid down by the clerical establishment.
In his final
report on January 2, 1992, to the U.N. Commission
on Human Rights, Reynaldo
Galindo Pohl, the Special Representative on the situation
of human rights
in Iran wrote: "... the Prosecutor General, Abolfazl
Musavi Tabrizi, said
that `anyone who rejects the principle of the `Hijab'
(dress code) is an
apostate and the punishment for an apostate under
Islamic law is death.'"
According to Ressalat on January 6, 1987, Khomeini
declared, "Hijab is a
requirement, and those who reject it must be condemned
to Takfir
(excommunication)." It goes without saying that under
the mullahs' rule,
Takfir translates into execution.
The dress code, which also applies to women of the
Christian and other
minority faiths, violates the right of all Iranian
women to freedom of
conscience and belief.
Note (1) of Article 102 of the penal code on Ta'azirat
(penitences) states:
"Women who appear on streets and in public without
the (prescribed)
`Islamic hijab' will be condemned to penitences of
74 strikes of the lash."
As reported by the state-controlled newspaper Kayhan
on March 30, 1983, the
regime's Prosecutor General announced that if an
improperly veiled woman is
arrested, there is no need for a court, since the
crime is established.
Public floggings of women in the streets are common.
Vice squads regularly mount crackdowns against women;
some include
roadblocks to enforce the dress codes. On May 9,
1995, Agence France Presse
reported that the regime's security forces had arrested
100 female foreign
nationals visiting Iran from the Central Asian Republics
for ignoring
strict dress regulations. According to The New York
Times, on June 23,
1993, "More than 800 women were arrested for dress
code violations, with
many being detained for wearing sunglasses, witnesses
said.... A Western
European diplomat was said to have been beaten on
Sunday for refusing to
allow the authorities to search his car." The U.N.
Special Representative
on the human rights situation in Iran reported in
1992 that "165 improperly
veiled women were arrested on June 7, 1992, in Tehran
by security agents
implementing a new plan to combat social corruption."
Reuters quoted the
Islamic Republic's news agency, IRNA, on April 23,
1991, as reporting that
Tehran police had detained 800 women in two days
for flouting the dress
codes.
In some occasions, the punitive action leads to the
death of the woman. On
September 2, 1993, in Tehran, Bahareh Vojdani, a
20-year-old girl, was
stopped by the vice squads for mal-veiling. She resisted
the Guards'
condescending behavior and the public reprimand.
The Guards shot and killed
her on the spot in broad daylight, as onlookers watched.
According to the regime's figures, in 1992, "113,000
persons were arrested
and referred to the judicial authorities on charges
of dissemination of
moral corruption and mal-veiling." The harassment
is not limited to
arrests. The regime's officials also send motorcycle
gangs of club-wielders
into the streets to attack women, sometimes slashing
their faces with razor
blades or throwing acid into their faces. On June
11, 1994, Agence France
Presse quoted the Iranian press in a report on security
officials' warning
to women to avoid "improper smiles" in the streets.
They were also
instructed to fully observe the dress code before
"looking out the windows"
of their homes. In some cases, the fine for murdering
a tribal woman in
southern Iran for crimes of honor is as low as $6.20.
Besides the "normal" penalty of 74 lashes, female
government employees who
violate the dress code are liable to temporary suspension
from work for up
to two years; expulsion and suspension from the public
service, and
indefinite deprivation of any employment in the public
service. According
to the state-controlled daily, Ressalat, on May 23,
1991, the head of the
Security Forces' Politico-Ideological Bureau announced:
"Employees whose
wives appear in public improperly veiled are considered
to have violated
the administrative law." This means that the woman's
husband is also
summoned at his workplace for administrative violation.
In this way, the
husband, too, becomes part of the "vice patrol,"
controlling the behavior
of his wife for fear of losing his job.
Stoning to death
The stoning of women is one of the more savage, and
revealing aspects of
the mullahs' rule in Iran. This vicious punishment
of women is without
precedent in Iran's recent history, and is not to
be found anywhere else in
the world. Since the inception of the mullahs' rule,
hundreds of women of
various ages have been and continue to be stoned
to death throughout Iran.
What makes this hideous crime more abhorrent is that
these crimes are
carried out under the name of Islam. The Quran and
the Prophet of Islam
deeply despised such behavior and denounced such
barbarism. The Prophet did
his utmost to eradicate backward traditions, including
stoning which
victimized women.
The penalty for adultery under Article 83 of the
penal code, called the Law
of Hodoud is flogging (100 strikes of the lash) for
unmarried male and
female offenders. Married offenders are liable to
stoning regardless of
their gender, but the method laid down for a man
involves his burial up to
his waist, and for a woman up to her neck (article
102). The law provides
that if a person who is to be stoned manages to escape,
he or she will be
allowed to go free. Since it is easier for a man
to escape, this
discrimination literally becomes a matter of life
and death.
Interestingly, Article 6 (2) of the International
Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, which Iran has ratified, states:
"Sentence of death may
be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance
with the law in
force at the time of the commission of the crime."
Offenses for which the
Law of Hodoud provides the death penalty do not involve
murder or serious
bodily harm, constituting the "most serious crimes".
Article 104 of the Law of Hodoud provides that the
stones should not be so
large that a person dies after being hit with two
of them, nor so small as
to be defined as pebbles, but must cause severe injury.
This makes it clear
that the purpose of stoning is to inflict grievous
pain on the victim, in a
process leading to her slow death.
Anecdotes of this brutal process reveal ever more
dimensions of cruelty.
Most of the time, the regime's authorities force
the victim's family
members, including children, to watch the stoning
to death of their loved
one, and in some instances, even when the woman miraculously
managed to
escape, contrary to the regime's own law, she was
recaptured and either
stoned again or killed on the spot.
On August 10, 1994, in the city of Arak, a woman
was sentenced to death by
stoning. According to the ruling of the religious
judge, her husband and
two children were forced to attend the execution.
The woman urged her
husband to take the children away, but to no avail.
A truck full of stones
was brought in to be used during the stoning. In
the middle of the stoning,
although her eyes had been gouged out, the victim
was able to escape from
the ditch and started running away, but the regime's
guards recaptured her
and shot dead.
In October 1989 in the city of Qom, a woman who was
being stoned managed to
pull herself out of the hole, only to be forced back
into it and stoned to
death. In justifying the murder, Qom's Chief Religious
judge, Mullah
Karimi, elaborated to Ressalat newspaper on October
30, 1989: "Generally
speaking, legal and religious decrees on someone
condemned to stoning call
for her stoning if her guilt was proven on the basis
of witnesses'
testimonies. Even if she were to escape in the middle
of the administration
of the sentence, she must be returned and stoned
to death."
On December 7, 1994, Reuters qouted a state controlled
newspaper,
Hamsharhi, on a married woman who was stoned to death
in the city of
Ramhormouz, southwestern Iran. Ressalat, March 1,
1994, read: "A woman was
stoned to death in the city of Qom." Kayhan of February
1, 1994, reported
that a woman named Mina Kolvat was stoned to death
in Tehran for having
immoral relations with her cousin.
The U.N. Special Representative on the human rights
situation in Iran
reported to the U.N. General Assembly in 1993: "On
November 1, 1992, a
woman named Fatima Bani was stoned to death in Isfahan."
Abrar reported on November 5, 1991, that a woman
was stoned in the city of
Qom charged with immoral relations. According to
Kayhan, August 21, 1991, a
woman charged with adultery by the name of Kobra
was sentenced to 70 lashes
and stoning. The verdict was carried out in the presence
of local people
and district officials.
Jomhouri Islami wrote on March 11, 1991, that in
Rasht (northern Iran),
"Bamani Fekri, child of Mohammad-Issa, ..., was sentenced
to stoning,
retribution, blinding of both eyes and payment of
100 gold dinars. After
the announcement of the verdict, she committed suicide
in prison."
Ressalat reported on January 16, 1990, that a woman
was stoned to death in
the city of Bandar Anzali (northern Iran). Ettela'at
reported on January 5,
1990: "Two women were stoned publicly on Wednesday
in the northern city of
Lahijan (northern Iran)." Jomhouri Islami, January
2, 1990: "Two women were
stoned in the city of Langrood (northern Iran)."
Kayhan wrote on July 31, 1989: "Six women were stoned
to death publicly in
Kermanshah on charges of adultery and moral corruption."
Kayhan, April 17,
1989, quoted the Religious judge and head of the
Fars and Bushehr Justice
Department as sentencing 10 women to stoning to death
on prostitution
charges which were immediately carried out.
Tehran radio, reported on March 6, 1989, that a woman
was stoned in Karaj
for committing adultery." Kayhan, October 4, 1986,
reported that a 25-year-
old woman named Nosrat was stoned to death in the
city of Qom. She died
after an hour of continuous stoning.
On April 17, 1986, a woman was stoned to death in
the city of Qom. Prior to
being stoned, she was whipped in public. In July
1980, four women were
simultaneously stoned to death in the city of Kerman.
The brutality is not limited to stoning. For example,
in late May 1990, in
the city of Neyshabour (northeastern Iran), a woman
charged with adultery
was thrown off a 10-story building. The execution
was carried out before
the public, and the victim died on impact.
The regime's duplicity, when it comes to publicizing
the news of such
Byzantine atrocities, is very telling. Inside Iran,
they are trumpeted with
great fanfare, but when it comes to the international
arena, officials
brazenly deny their methods. In an interview with
Le Figaro on September
10, 1994, Rafsanjani was asked, "Are women accused
of adultery stoned in
Iran?" He replied: "No, no such thing exists in Iran.
This has been
fabricated to damage us."
HOME