Can you believe the fact that hundreds of women are killed by their family in the name of keeping family’s honor every year? According to Iran human rights, fourteen years old girl, identified as Saeedeh, has been stoned to death by her own father in Iran. Her father, Mohammad Sharif said that when he found out about his fourteen years old daughter’s relationship with a boy, he took Saeedeh to the mountains around the city of zahedan and killed her by stoning and then shooting four bullets at her. (“A 14 years”) This kind of cases are called “honor killing” that means people are murdered by their family in compensation for having destroyed family’s honor. Retributive penalties for law-breaking are based on Sharia which is a system of religious laws followed by Muslims. However, the extent of interpretation of Sharia is different from countries to countries according to social structure or cultural value. In particular, there is harsh and inhumane legal punishment on women in Iran which is strict Islamic country. Therefore, the government of Iran should adopt more humanistic legal punishment on women. This is for the following two reasons:
1) Punishing women inhumanely is the violation of human rights.
2) Punishing women differently encourages inequality between men and women.
The way of punishing women in Iran violates the fundamental human rights. Honor killing in Islamic countries are often carried out by stoning. Stoning to death is an action that a crowd throws stones at the person until he or she is dead. Stoning is a barbaric show that infringes human’s dignity in public and violation of human rights. It is against articles 3 and 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of articles 6 and 7 of the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantee the right to life and prohibit torture and inhuman treatment. (The Universal Declaration) Honor killing is carried out for a variety of reasons such as girl’s refusal to an arranged marriage, not following the Islamic dress code and simply having contacts with men who are not family. No matter how inhumane it is, the victims of honor killing can’t be saved. This is because there is no court hearing or official organization that judges offenders. The cases of honor killing are usually justified in the name of Islam and Sharia. The Sharia provide two spheres of human activity : those actions that relate humanity to God and those that relate humans to fellow humans. The juridical deliberations in the exclusively male-oriented traditional centers of Islamic learning, the madorasa, have disregarded female voice in the emerging discourse connected with women’s issues and human rights. (Perspectives on Islamic Law, Justice and Society) There is nothing in the Sharia or Koran that allows or justifies honor killing. According to Tahira Shahid Khan, a professor specializing in women's issues at the Aga Khan University in Pakistan, the view of women as property with no rights of their own is deeply Islamic culture.(National Geographic News)
The legal punishment in Iran shows the concept of gender inequality. Legal punishment which driven by Qisas (law of retribution) in Iran is obviously based on the idea that women are inherently inferior to men. Important thing here is that the law is undoubtedly harsher on women. Let’s take the age of criminal responsibility for example. It is fifteen for boys but nine for girls. The testimony of two women in courts is equal to that of one man. (the hidden face of eve) Also, the process of stoning to death is barbarically harsher for women. Men are to be buried up to their waist and women up to their chest. The possibility of escaping from the hole is higher for a man than for a woman. Moreover, the blood money payable to the family of the victim for the death of a man is twice that for a woman. In terms of financial aspects, a woman’s life is officially less valued than a man’s in Iran. This has encouraged the murder of women under the name of “keeping family honor”. According to Chief Justice Ayatollah Yazdi, “Many women and girls live in constant fear for their lives because some men murder their lives or daughter on slight suspicion and then are easily set free by paying a very low compensation money”. This social structure implies that men possess women and women’s bodies. Purification of the woman’s body and soul is a religious and political duty for the individual man, and through him, by extension, for the Islam state. Therefore, when rules are broken, it is man who has the obligation and justification to punish the rule-breaker. Setting a higher price on a man’s life also means that rape and woman’s murder go unpunished. Under the Iranian criminal code these crimes are punishable by death. However, under the new “Islamified” law, the family of a murdered woman is required to pay a substantial amount of dieh(blood money) to the murderer before he can be punished. If the family of the victim cannot come up with dieh, the murderer can be free from punishment. Actually, Iran is highly male-centered society where the dignity of women is deteriorated. Facing constant fear of oppression, women are forced to follow men. (Feminism and Islamic)
In conclusion, the government of Iran should carry out legal punishment on women in more humanistic ways. As shown above, women are systematically oppressed in Iran. There is a clear necessity to abolish the cruel legal punishment such as honor killing immediately to save human lives and protect human rights. Unless the government of Iran adopt more humanistic and gender equal punishment, more and more women will be sacrificed and lose their precious lives.
