Farzaneh Moradi’s Hanging Scheduled for This Morning Now Delayed for a Month: Justice for Iran Demands A Retrial

girls (2)Justice for Iran (JFI), February 2, 2014- The hanging of Farzaneh Moradi, a 26-year-old woman charged with the murder of her husband, scheduled for this morning, was delayed by a month this morning in Isfahan, Iran.

Mohammad Reza Habibi, the Attorney General in Isfahan confirmed the extension and added the judiciary is making every effort to secure the agreement of the victim’s family in order to spare her life. According to Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, Farzaneh’s lawyer, the family of her late husband has agreed to give her a month in order to prove it was her lover who committed the murder and not her.

Farzaneh Moradi was forced to marry a paternal relative at the age of 15 and gave birth to her first child at 16. Farzaneh fell in love with a man named Saeed at 19 and a year later was charged and arrested for the murder of her husband. She initially took responsibility for the murder of her husband hoping his parents would forgive her and Saeed who had committed the murder was then in a position to marry her.

Khorramshahi points out Saeed is at large and Farzaneh needs to begin the process of charging him with the murder as she claims. He adds the family of Farzaneh’s late husband will only agree to spare her life, if Saeed is tried, a challenging task that may prove impossible. In this manner, Farzaneh, a victim of forced early marriage, continues to face execution.

In a report entitled “Stolen Lives, Empty Classrooms: An Overview on Girl Marriages in the Islamic Republic of Iran” published on the occasion of the inaugural International Day of the Girl Child on 11 October 2013, Justice for Iran examined the statistics and laws pertaining to forced girl marriages and called for a ban on child marriages and abolishing all laws pertaining to girl marriages, in particular those below the age of 13. In addition, JFI submitted a report to the United Human Rights Council, now in the midst of investigating this phenomenon. JFI also held a Facebook event attracting more than 56,000 members with more than 150 moving personal enriching this important initiative.

Furthermore, JFI published a new report today, entitled “Forced Girl Marriages: The Death of One’s Reality“. This report examines the justifications, but more importantly the effects of this form of harmful practice on the lives of women and girl children, who form the least powerful segment of the family and society in Iran, based on accounts and images shared in JFI’s Facebook event. They include lack of access to education, physical or psychological damage, domestic violence, early pregnancy and its side effects, suicide or in some cases homicide at the expense of facing execution, as in the case of Farzaneh Moradi, who may have played a role in her husband’s murder in order to flee forced marriage.

Please see the relevant Prezi at this link or the picture.

Academic studies indicate women charged with the murder of their spouses are often forced to marry as children between 13 and 18 years of age. Many of those in Iran are unable to flee domestic violence due to cultural and legal barriers to divorce.

02 Feb 2014

http://justiceforiran.org/call-for-action/english-farzaneh-moradis-hanging-scheduled-for-this-morning-now-delayed-for-a-month-justice-for-iran-demands-a-retrial/?lang=en