Child bride who killed the man she was made to marry at 15 is among three women put to death in Iran for murdering their husbands
Three women were hanged this week for the murder of their husbands, including an Iranian child bride who killed the man she was forced to marry when she was just 15 years old.
Soheila Abadi, now 25 years old, was executed by hanging in prison after being found guilty of murdering her husband due to “family problems,” as claimed by the sentencing judges.
According to Human Rights Watch, two additional women who were put to death on Wednesday were also found guilty of killing their husbands.
Domestic abuse, according to activists, is the main cause of spouses being killed by their wives, but this is not taken into account by Iranian courts.
The three were among 32 persons who were hung across the nation in the previous week alone.
It comes amid a surge in executions across the country, with at least 251 people killed by the state killed in the first six months of the year, Amnesty International reported.
The figure is more than double the number executed over the same period last year.
The charity accused Iran of carrying out a ‘horrific spree’ of executions, with many of those sentenced to death not having had a fair trial.
Of the 251 executed, 146 of them were for murder, and at least 86 were for drug offences which should not warrant the death penalty under international law.
Diana Eltahawy, deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, said: ‘The state machinery is carrying out killings on a mass scale across the country in an abhorrent assault on the right to life.