“Honour killings”; in recent years, we have heard this phrase repeatedly and each time our souls and beings have been pained, and each time we have written whatever we could, but unfortunately, there has been a lack of attention and effective and noticeable action.

In recent years, we have heard many times that Iranian girls have lost their lives due to the narrow-mindedness of their parents. Talking about statistics in Iran may be difficult due to the current government, but the evidence and indications suggest that these crimes exist more than what we hear and see, but most of these types of crimes do not receive media coverage.

It can be called foolishness to commit such crimes, as the perpetrators, despite the atrocities they commit, consider themselves righteous based on their corrupt beliefs. These murders have reached such severity and brutality that even the narration of what happened requires a strong heart. Those who spread arrogant and anti-human thoughts in this country have put themselves to sleep and do nothing to prevent these atrocities. They are the ones who caused a 17-year-old girl’s father to kill her, who according to the judge, was murdered for “having a phone conversation with a non-relative” and then took her body and head to his tribal leader. This is the ultimate savagery. The murder of Mousomeh on December 13th of this year became a media sensation and this level of brutality cannot be ignored under the names of prejudice, honor, and masculinity.

Undoubtedly, the Iranian government plays a key role in promoting this incorrect, conservative, and regressive culture. Backward laws, the education system, cultural and social institutions, all fall under the control of a government that constantly supports and promotes these inhumane ideologies. As a result, we see cases like Romina being killed by her father with a sickle, or Mona being murdered by her husband, who then celebrates the act. Innocent 17-year-old Masoumeh is killed by her father, a child bride is killed by her seminary student husband, or a father sets his daughter on fire with gasoline, and countless other cases. We cannot remain indifferent to these crimes, which are essentially supported by outdated laws and systematically perpetuated.

But why are these systematic crimes happening?

In the first case of the Islamic Republic system in 1358, relying on sharia, no law was passed to prohibit marriage of children under the age of eighteen. It is believed that the most important factor in honor crimes is this child marriage. Statistics show that many of the victims are girls between the ages of fifteen and twenty who are forced into forced marriages, and the government does nothing despite seeing and hearing about these tragedies every day; even the data from the Iranian Statistical Center shows that in the past five years, more than one hundred and twenty thousand girls under the age of fifteen have been married, of which only seven thousand and five hundred cases are related to the summer of 1400. The Iranian Statistical Center even reported a 1.5% increase in the number of marriages of girls aged ten to fourteen compared to 1999. This is while Hassan Norouzi, who holds the title of head of the Legal and Judicial Commission of the Parliament, denies and claims that thirteen

Regarding the next issue, regardless of the influence of factors such as cultural, social, familial, geographical, etc. that cannot be denied, we can mention the existence of laws that support honor killings.

As you know, these types of crimes do not have a private complainant. As stated in Article 208 of the Islamic Penal Code: “Anyone who commits intentional murder without a complainant and his actions cause disturbance in the society or fear or terrorizes or harms the perpetrator or others, will be sentenced to imprisonment for three to ten years.” Or Article 220 of the same law, which states: “A father or grandfather who kills his child will not be subject to retaliation, but will be required to pay blood money to the heirs of the victim and be punished with imprisonment.” As you can see, the Penal Code, which is based on the principles of patriarchal and tribal rule, rather than a civil and citizen-based system, considers women and children as the property of men and does not consider the killing of them as a punishable offense.

Furthermore, Article 630 of the Penal Code, also known as “Murder in Flagrante Delicto,” states that: “If a man catches his wife in the act of adultery with another man and has knowledge of her consent, he may immediately kill them both.” As you can see, the law has granted permission for murder and has labeled this act as “justifiable homicide.”

Despite these inhumane laws, the judge of the case of Masoumeh, Abbas Bai, who seems to lack complete and sufficient legal knowledge, has calmly dealt with this matter and declares that the current ineffective laws have no flaws and are sufficient deterrents. They even deny the facts of these types of cases and attribute regret and remorse to the parents in this way. This is while we have always witnessed that these individuals have not felt remorse for their crimes. A prominent example is the case of the Khoramdin family, and the government, which is fully responsible for these crimes, has not taken and will not take any effective action, as human lives are not important to them. Another issue that must be mentioned is that in these types of crimes, we have two murderers: one is the actual murderer who is tasked with cutting veins, and the other is the collective murderer, meaning society and its subcultures, which sharpen the knife by creating moral and cultural norms and give the

This writer invites us to stop throwing around the concepts of “honor” and “dignity” and instead provide proper definitions for them, because friendship and honor can actually make family relationships more beautiful, secure, and selfless; especially in these times of loneliness. My honor is free to live and behave in any way it wants and likes, but at the same time it can be pleased to know that there is someone standing with dignity and security. That is what dignity is, but if it is accompanied by the deprivation of personal freedom, domination and oppression, it becomes slavery and servitude.

Our mission is not only to write, but to make people aware, to wake them up and to eliminate this monster that is growing day by day; otherwise, we will witness even more horrifying disasters; although all of these are destructive and terrifying.