A video of an Iranian man holding his wife’s severed head as he walks through the streets is horrifying people around the world.
According to Arab News, police in Iran say Mona Heidari, 17, was killed by her husband and brother-in-law in the Iranian city of Ahvaz. The two men are under arrest.
Iran News Wire reported that the horrific incident occurred on February 5, 2022, when the man beheaded his wife because she ran off to Turkey.
According to The New York Post, the husband, who carried a knife in one hand and the head in another as he walked down the street, is named Sajjad Heydari.
Here’s what you need to know:
Heidari Was a Young Mother Who Fled Her Husband’s Violence, Reports Say
According to Iran News Wire, Heidari left behind a 3-year-old son; she was “forced to marry her cousin when she was 12 years old,” the site reported, and she fled her husband’s “violence.”
According to the site, many honor killings do not result in stiff sentences because only immediate family members can “demand execution” when a person is murdered.
Alarabiya reported that a police official said, “the defendants confessed to the murder during the police investigation and were introduced to the judicial authority.”
The suspects are brothers, the site reported.
The Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran website reported that Mona “was forced to marry her cousin, Sajjad Heydari when she was only 12 years old. Mona was constantly exposed to domestic violence. Every time she asked for a divorce, her family persuaded her to go back home and continue living with her husband for the sake of her child.”
A Filmmaker Decried the Honor Killing
Tahmineh Milani, a filmmaker, wrote a tribute to the victim and shared her photo on Instagram. She wrote, “…Mona married her cousin at the age of twelve….All of us Iranians are guilty of this horrible crime. All of us 😢”
The Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran further described the horrific scene:
Sajjad and his brother tied her hands and feet and beheaded her. Sajjad’s brother wrapped Mona’s headless body in a blanket and threw it in another area. Sajjad took Mona’s head and walked down the street with a knife in his hand. He then fled.
The site notes:
The catastrophic rise in honor killings in Iran is rooted in misogyny and the patriarchal culture institutionalized in the laws and society. Although the father, brother, or husband holds the knife, sickle, or rifle, the murders are rooted in the medieval outlook of the ruling regime. The clerical regime’s laws officially denote that women are second-degree citizens owned by men.
The site continued, “The state-run ROKNA news website was shut down for publishing the news and the video clip of this horrific honor killing in Ahvaz…Not a week goes by without some form of honor killing making headlines. The clerical regime’s failure to criminalize these murders has led to a catastrophic rise in honor killings.”
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