A young beautician has been stabbed to death in the streets of the Iranian city of Islamshahr by her father, who reportedly attacked her after she told her mother that he was having an affair.
Fatemeh Soltani, an 18-year-old living in the repressive country, had been working secretly at a beauty salon, refusing to tell her family about her job due to her fear of her father’s reaction.
But her father managed to find her workplace by booking an appointment through a number listed on her business’ Instagram page.
When Fatemeh realised that her father was the one who made the appointment, she reportedly called her mother in distress.
Fatemeh was killed on the salon’s doorstep, local media reports, with harrowing CCTV footage showing her father jumping out of his car, dragging her to the floor, kneeling over her and stabbing her repeatedly.
The horrific crime took place while people passed by on foot and in cars.
The father reportedly only stopped when one passer-by screamed.
A close friend of the family told local media: ‘Fatemeh had been living separately from her father and the family for some time due to domestic violence and had achieved financial independence.’
The National Council of Resistance of Iran’s Women’s committee said in response to Soltani’s death: ‘The root of the violence against women and the primary cause of these murders and social tragedies lies in the misogynistic clerical regime, which, in over 46 years, has not even passed the bill to prevent violence against women in its parliament.
‘In this regime, the abuse and even killing of women carries little consequence.
‘The Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran has called on the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran and the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women to investigate this painful situation and to expel representatives of this misogynistic regime from international bodies.’
Iran does not provide accurate statistics on rates of femicide, meaning that local newspapers are often the only reliable source to track these cases.
The Etemad newspaper reported that 78 women were murdered by their relatives or family members between March and September last year.
Meanwhile, the Shargh newspaper reported that in 2023 male family members killed at least 165 women between 2021 and 2023.
Of these, 27 women were murdered in the first three months of 2023 alone, with ‘honour killings’ cited as a primary motive.
These figures reflect only reported murders, and the actual number is likely much higher.
In 2022, an Iranian man carried the severed head of his wife through the streets after decapitating her in an ‘honour killing’ after she tried to flee the country.
The unnamed man beheaded his wife Mona Heydari, 17, in the southwestern city of Ahvaz before carrying her severed head around the streets.
The young wife is understood to have fled to Turkey after her family discovered that she had an affair.
But she was tracked to the country and brought back to Iran by her father and her husband, according to local media reports.
The victim was just 12 when she was married to the man – who is also her cousin – and had a three-year-old son by the time she was killed.
Authorities have arrested the husband and his brother on charges of killing Mona in revenge for adultery and leaving him. Police did not release the men’s names.
Gruesome footage showed the husband grinning as he held a knife in one hand and carrying what was said to be his wife’s decapitated head in the another.
The incident has shocked many people in Iran where the legal age for marriage are 13 and women are compelled to wear a head covering in accordance with Islam.
Iranian newspapers and social media saw an outpouring of shock and rage over the killing, with many demanding social and legal reforms.
‘A human being was decapitated, her head was displayed on the streets and the killer was proud,’ said the reformist daily Sazandegi.
‘How can we accept such a tragedy? We must act so that femicide does not happen again.’
Lawyer Ali Mojtahedzadeh, in the reformist paper Shargh, blamed ‘legal loopholes’ for ‘paving the way for honour killings’.
Fellow member of parliament Elham Nadaf told the ILNA news agency: ‘Unfortunately, we are witnessing such incidents because there are no concrete measures to ensure the implementation of laws to prevent violence against women.’
Semi-official news agency ILNA quoted police officer Col. Sohrab Hosseinnejad as saying the two ‘defendants confessed to the murder during the police investigation and were introduced to the judicial authority’.
Local media said police did not elaborate further on the killing or who filmed the gruesome video of the husband carrying his wife’s head.