She Was Married At 14. Got Pregnant At 15. She Is Now 21 And About To Be Hanged
Razieh Ebrahimi was forced to marry at the age of 14, became a mother at 15, and killed her husband at 17. Now at 21, she is on Iran's death row.
By Sadho Ram — 21 Jun 2014, 07:04 AM — Updated over 10 years ago
An Iranian child bride, forced to marry at the age of 14, is facing execution after a court found her guilty of murdering her husband when she was just 17 years old
Razieh Ebrahimi was forced into marriage at the age of 14. She gave birth to her husband’s child just a year a later. Ebrahimi claims she endured years of mental and physical abuse before she shot him in the head while he was sleeping.
theguardian.com
Razieh faces imminent execution, despite international laws prohibiting execution for crimes committed by juveniles, The Guardian reports
Human Rights Watch, has urged Iran's judiciary to halt the execution. Earlier this week, Ebrahimi's lawyer also asked judges to consider a retrial, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
theguardian.com
Under Iranian law, the victim's family can pardon Ebrahimi up until the very second before she is hanged, but the husband's family say they want the execution to go ahead. In April the mother of murdered teen Abdollah Hosseinzadeh pardoned the man who killed her son in a street brawl just moments before he was to be hung at a public execution.
Razieh says that she married her neighbour's son on the insistence of her father, and was regularly beaten
"I married our neighbour's son when I was only 14 because my dad insisted," Ebrahimi was quoted as telling officials working on her case, according to Mehr. "My dad insisted I should marry him because he was educated and was working as a teacher. I was 15 when I gave birth to my child." Her child is believed to be now six years old.
"I didn't know who I am or what is life all about," she said soon after being arrested. "My husband mistreated me. He used any excuse to insult me, even attacking me physically."
theguardian.com
“I couldn’t sleep all night, until the morning I was sitting above him looking at him. I was looking at him and I was thinking of what he had done to me and thinking about why he humiliates me and what can I do, what should I do. Every single event that happened is rolling in front of my eyes like a film and in the morning I took a gun and I shot him,” she is quoted as saying in Iranian newspaper Shargh Daily on Wednesday.
thedailybeast.comRazieh has admitted that she killed her sleeping husband and buried his body in the garden of their home, before reporting him missing to police, Huffington Post reports
Razieh is said to have admitted to killing her husband with his own gun before burying him in the garden. She initially told the police her husband was missing but her own father found the dead body and gave her in to the police.
Her lawyer is believed to submitted a retrial request to the Supreme Court on the grounds that she was under 18 at the time of the crime, but the Supreme Court refused this request. Her case has already progressed to Iran’s Office of the Implementation of Sentence, meaning her execution could take place at any moment.
theguardian.com
"Every time an Iranian judge issues a death sentence for a child offender like Razieh, he should remember he is in flagrantly violating his legal responsibilities to administer justice fairly and equitably," said the deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division Joe Stork. "Iran's judiciary should reverse its execution order of a battered child bride."
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At the time of publishing this story, a petition on Amnesty International's website has garnered more than 14,000 signatures to call for a halt to the execution
Child bride, Razieh, is set to be hung to death for the murder of her husband in Iran. Act today. Demand Iran immediately halt the execution of Razieh Ebrahimi.
Since 2009, Iran has executed at least 11 child offenders, making it the country with the world’s highest number of child executions
Iranian authorities previously executed Delara Darabi, 17, in 2009 after she was convicted of murder despite strong international protests
Image via dailymail.co.ukThe International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a signatory, prohibits the use of the death penalty against people convicted of crimes committed when they were under 18.
Under the Iranian Civil Code girls can marry at 13 and boys at 15. They can marry younger with the consent of their legal guardians and a competent court. International human rights standards recommend 18 as the minimum age for marriage.
theguardian.com