A “child bride” and alleged domestic violence victim was executed by hanging in Ghezel Hesar prison in Karaj, Iran, after being arrested about 10 years ago for murdering her husband, according to a Wednesday announcement by the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group. IHR said Samira Sabzian was wed to her husband when she was 15 and arrested in 2013, four years later. “Samira Sabzian endured years of gender apartheid, child marriage, and domestic violence. Today, she became a victim of the execution machinery of an inefficient and corrupt government which sustains itself through violence and intimidation,” IHR Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said. According to France 24, Sabzian’s hanging comes during a surge in executions in Iran, where hundreds of people have been handed death sentences, mostly on murder and drug charges. The United Nations Human Rights office wrote, “We again urge Iran to establish a moratorium on all executions with a view to abolishing [the] death penalty.”
