Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Girl hanged for stabbing Rapist in self defence



Saturday, 07, January 2006.

IranFocus News

An Iranian court sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging for unintentionally killing a man who tried to rape both her and her niece.

18-year-old Nazanin stab one of the three men who had attacked the girls. The incident began when three men throw stones at the two girls and their boyfriends at a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005. Their boyfriends quickly escaped on their motorbikes leaving the two girls helpless.

Nazanin and her niece were pushed by the three men onto the ground and tried to rape them. Nazanin who was 17 years old at that time of the incident, took out a knife and stabbed one of the men in the hand. As the girls tried to escape, the men once again attacked them.

At this point, Nazanin stabbed one of the men in the chest and he died. The girls explained to the court that they had acted in self defence and there is no mens rea (intention) of killing the man. The court however sentence Nazanin to be hanged to death.

In August 2004, Iran's Islamic court sentenced a 16-year-old girl, Atefeh Rajabi, to death after a sham trial in which she was accused of committing "acts incompatible with chastity". The teenage girl had no access to a lawyer at any stage. She defended herself and told the judge that he should punish those who force her into adultery, not the victim. She was eventually hanged in public in the northern town of Neka.

The hard-line daily Kayhan reported separately on Thursday that a 22-year-old woman, identified only by her first name Afsaneh, was sentenced to death by hanging along with two men in the city of Qazvin, west of Tehran. Afsaneh was accused of seducing the men to murder her husband. She was 18 at the time.

1 comment:

scorkes said...

I think this is despicable. I've heard that sometimes young girls who have been sold into prostitution and then brutally rape would then return home only to be tried for 'participating in immoral activities'.

Even if these stories are lies, it wouldn't be wrong to give more rights to women in Iran.