An Iranian man brutally decapitated his young wife and then paraded her head in front of a crowd. Sajjad Heydari beheaded his 17-year-old ...
An Iranian man brutally decapitated his young wife and then paraded her head in front of a crowd.
Sajjad Heydari beheaded his 17-year-old wife, Mona Heydari, then took video of himself parading her head down a street in Ahvaz, a city in the southwestern province of Khuzestan. He then shared the content on social media, The Independent reported.
In the video, he was seen smiling while he held his wife’s head in one hand and a knife in the other.
Mona had been forced to marry Sajjad, her cousin, when she was only 12-years-old. She allegedly suffered domestic abuse, and she expressed that she wanted a divorce. But she was reportedly pressured to stay for the sake of their 3-year-old son, the Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran reported.
Mona had escaped to Turkey, but eventually returned. Her brother assured her that she would be safe.
However, within days of returning home, Sajjad and his brother reportedly tied Mona to a chair and beheaded her. His brother reportedly put the body in a blanket and got rid of it while Sajjad walked down the street with the head. He then fled, the Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance to Iran reported.
Police officers did make two arrests during a raid, according to India Today.
This brutal killing has added to the continuing concerns about women’s safety and human rights in Iran.
In March of 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council published a report saying that women were being treated as second-class citizens in Iran.
The report cited domestic abuse, child marriages and the continued marginalization of women.
This incident has prompted more outcry.
Ensieh Khazali, Iran’s vice president for women’s affairs, called on the parliament and law enforcement to take “urgent measures” to prevent such violence and abuse, India Today reported.
The murder has also caught the eye of international human rights lawyers.
“The Iranian authorities enabled the barbaric beheading of Mona Heydari — a child bride — for seeking a divorce from a violently abusive marriage, and bear full responsibility,” Yonah Diamond, a lawyer who focuses on justice issues in Iran, told The Independent.
“This is not an isolated murder in Iran, nor did it happen in a vacuum,” Diamond added. “It occurred under a legal system and officials targeting women rights defenders, including those who educate women on their rights in marriage like Hoda Amid and Najmeh Vahedi, with harsher sentences — lengthier prison time, lashes, solitary confinement and abuse — than the men who brutally murder their wives or daughters.”
The oppression of women in Iran is clear, but killings like this one often fall under the category of “honor killing,” which is partially permitted by Iran’s constitution, Iran International reported.
Article 630 of the Constitution, for example, exempts a husband from punishment if he kills his wife after witnessing adultery.
One women’s right NGO reported that in the past two years at least 60 women have been killed for honor reasons.
The state’s tight hold on the media in Iran means that many of these killings are overlooked or completely unreported.
In the instance of Mona’s beheading, the news agency Rokna, which released video footage of Sajjad with his wife’s head, was quickly shut down, Iran International reported.
The Rokna website was closed because of its decision to “publish images and issues that violate public decency,” ABC News reported.
Though there are reports that Sajjad and his brother were arrested, there is no evidence yet regarding if they will be punished or how.
According to India Today, parliament member Elham Nadaf said, “Unfortunately, we are witnessing such incidents because there are no concrete measures to ensure the implementation of laws to prevent violence against women.”
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