Journalist detained for eleven days after reporting on the murder of a "child wife"

A local journalist in Lorestan province says he was detained for 11 days after publishing news of the murder of a teenage bride by her common-law husband.

Sina Qalandari, a local journalist from Kohdasht and Rumeshkan, told an Iranian media outlet that she had been detained for at least eleven days in Khorramabad Central Prison after reporting on the murder of Mobina Souri, a teenage girl from the Souri district of Lorestan province, by some of her family members.

Sina Qalandari said in an interview with the Hamdali newspaper on Monday, September 10, that she was arrested on the orders of the regional prosecutor and following a complaint from the family of Mobina Souri and the defendants in the case.

In explaining his arrest, the journalist says that after a news agency published "untrue and incorrect" news about the murder of the teenage girl, he published the correct news and was subsequently arrested.

Mr. Qalandari says that despite his poor physical condition, he was not provided with the necessary medication during his detention, and despite the pain and bleeding, he was not taken to the hospital.

Emphasizing that he spent at least eleven days in detention without charges being dropped, the local journalist announced a three-day hunger strike to protest the conditions of his detention. He considers the apparent reason for his arrest to be “telling the truth about the dimensions of the incident,” and says: “Local journalists have been dealt with many times for exposing issues like this, but their voices have not been heard anywhere, and perhaps that is why they have been oppressed.”

Previously, the Voice of America reported, citing the Iranian Radio and Television Agency, that in mid-September, following the discovery of the body of a "Russian woman" named Mubina Souri, her husband, a cleric, was arrested as a suspect.

The Rokna news agency, citing the Lorestan police commander, stated that the reason for the murder, which occurred on September 29, was a family dispute motivated by honor by one of the family members.

Last year, a 14-year-old girl named Romina Ashrafi was murdered by her father in a village in Talesh, Gilan, and the court sentenced her father to only 9 years in prison.

It was after the murder of Romina Ashrafi that the "Protection of Children and Adolescents" bill, after 11 years of waiting, was finally approved by the Guardian Council on June 8, 2020. One of the features of this bill is the "criminalization" of any direct or indirect action that leads to harm to children.

However, the eleven-year delay in this bill is not the only case that demonstrates the lack of laws protecting women and children in Iran. According to the penal laws of the Islamic Republic, if a father kills his child, there is no retribution, but rather the general aspect of the crime, which is 3 to 10 years of imprisonment, is implemented.

Source: Voice of America