Official Explains Initiative on Bill to Increase Punishment for Child-Killing Fathers
The Vice President announced work on a bill to impose harsher punishment on fathers in cases like Romina’s murder. Meanwhile, a woman wrote to the Tehran police intelligence unit explaining she fled her home to avoid Romina’s fate.
Massoumeh Ebtekar said a bill is under review to amend laws regarding paternal punishment in cases of intentional child murder, aiming to ensure that “if a case like Romina’s murder happens again, the father would face more severe punishment”.
The Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, on Thursday, the 5th of Tir, told ILNA news agency that expert work has been completed on this bill and expressed hope that once sent to the legislative commission, it will be reviewed there.
Romina’s murder, which Mehdi Fallah Miri, the General and Revolutionary Prosecutor of Gilan Province, described as “extremely horrific and unjustifiable,” has sparked extensive debate, particularly regarding religious rulings on child murder.
The 13-year-old girl from Talesh was killed by her father in early Khordad, and this incident is among crimes referred to as “honor killings.”
Punishment for intentional murder in the Islamic Republic is in most cases “qisas,” or in other words, execution, but this punishment does not apply to fathers who kill their own children.
A Woman Flees Her Home Fearing Romina’s Fate
Concurrently with Massoumeh Ebtekar’s statements, excerpts from a letter written by a 30-year-old woman to Tehran’s police intelligence unit became public, in which she requested that police not act on her family’s request to pursue and return her.
The letter states: “My family opposed my marriage to a man I love. I ran away from home and I know if I return, I will meet Romina’s fate and my father will kill me, but I don’t want to meet that fate.”
The father of this girl, named Mitra, went to one of Tehran’s police stations on the 23rd of Khordad and reported that his daughter, who holds a master’s degree in law, left home in the morning and contrary to saying she would return by noon, did not return by evening and was not answering her phone.
Mitra wrote in her letter that she went to one of the southern cities with a man who came to ask for her hand in marriage but whom her family opposed, and they were married there. She also sent a copy of the marriage certificate to the police and requested that her missing person case be closed. Her family has not yet responded to this letter.
Source: DW
