Daughter Executes Mother For Murdering Abusive Husband Under Eye-For-An-Eye Revenge Law

A woman who was on death row for murdering her abusive husband has been executed by their own daughter by hanging.

The execution took place in Rasht Central Prison located in northern Iran on March 15, 13 years after Maryam Karimi had been sentenced to death for killing her husband. Maryam was assisted in the crime by her father Ebrahimi Karimi, reported Iran Wire.

Maryam was executed as per Qisas (an eye-for-an-eye), a Sharia law that permits the victim's heir to take the life of the convicted perpetrator. The Iranian law also encourages the family members of the victim to carry out the actual execution themselves.

Karimi's daughter declined to forgive her or accept blood money for the death of her father and instead chose to carry out the execution.

Iran Human Rights (IHR) sources told Iran Wire that Maryam's daughter was 6 years old at the time of the murder. She has been in the care of her father's family since then.

"For the past 13 years, they had told her that both her parents were dead. But they had to tell her the truth a few weeks prior to the execution to prepare her psychologically," the sources told the outlet.

Maryam's father Ebrahim was brought to see his daughter's corpse hanging on the noose, the sources said, noting that he was not executed for unknown reasons. Instead, he was due to be returned to the general ward in the next two days.

According to the sources, Maryam's husband was abusive and physically violent. Moreover, he refused to divorce her. "The father, who had no other way of saving his daughter, helped her in killing him," they added.

IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam called for such inhumane sentences to be repealed. "The Islamic Republic's laws make a girl, whose father was murdered when she was a child, the executioner of her own mother. The Islamic Republic is the leading promoter of violence in Iranian society today," he said.

Activist and journalist Aram Bolandpaz also called out the execution, saying Qisas is savage and cruel, a report from Euro Weekly News said. "Four decades of brain-washing at schools, extreme punishments in Iranian society, and a patriarchal regime mean that Maryam's daughter was raised to make sure that executing her mother was a victory for a man, whether that be for her father or for the oppressive regime," Bolandpaz said.