Iran halts execution of woman married as a child after victim’s family ‘forgives’ her

A woman sentenced to death by Iran over the death of her husband who she married while a child will not be hanged after she was “forgiven” by the family of the victim, the Iranian judiciary announced on Tuesday.

Goli Kouhkan, a member of the Baluch minority without documentation and now aged 25, had been set to be executed this month in a case that had caused widespread international concern.

UN rights experts last week urged Iran to halt the execution of Kouhkan, saying she was forced into marriage at the age of 12 to her cousin and at 13 gave birth to their son, with both mother and child suffering violent abuse from the husband.

“She was forgiven through the mediation of the judicial system and the consent of the deceased’s parents,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said, posting a video of the ceremony where the documents were signed and saying the parents had granted her a “new life.”

The UN experts and other rights groups had said that sparing Kouhkan’s life had been made conditional on her raising so-called blood money (known as diyah), which under sharia law means a person can be spared execution if money is paid for the life that has been taken.

Her lawyer Parand Gharahdaghi wrote on Instagram that the original sum, equivalent to around 100,000 euros, had been reduced to around 80,000 euros and raised through donations and charities.

Mizan’s report did not mention the blood money sum.

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights, which sought to raise awareness of her plight, said “her case reflects the discrimination and structural violence experienced by many women in the Islamic Republic who face the death penalty.”

According to IHR’s current toll, Iranian authorities have executed more than 40 women this year alone, many of them victims of poverty, child marriage and domestic violence.

“In court, no consideration was given to Goli’s age at the time of marriage, the history of domestic violence, or the fact that she had no access to a lawyer during her arrest and interrogation and was illiterate at the time,” said Amiry-Moghaddam.

According to IHR, she was arrested over the killing of her husband in May 2018, when she was 18 years old, and sentenced to death along with his cousin.

It said she had called her husband’s cousin for help when the husband had been beating her and her son. A fight then broke out in which the husband was killed.

IHR said that the cousin, Mohammad Abil, “remains on death row and at risk of execution.”

According to human rights groups including Amnesty International, Iran is the world’s second most prolific executioner after China.