Shocking


Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Jan. 07 – An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece.

The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005.

Nazanin, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, said that after the three men started to throw stones at them, the two girls’ boyfriends quickly escaped on their motorbikes leaving the pair helpless.

She described how the three men pushed her and her 16-year-old niece Somayeh onto the ground and tried to rape them, and said that she took out a knife from her pocket and stabbed one of the men in the hand.

As the girls tried to escape, the men once again attacked them, and at this point, Nazanin said, she stabbed one of the men in the chest. The teenage girl, however, broke down in tears in court as she explained that she had no intention of killing the man but was merely defending herself and her younger niece from rape, the report said.

The court, however, issued on Tuesday a sentence for Nazanin to be hanged to death.

Last week, a court in the city of Rasht, northern Iran, sentenced Delara Darabi to death by hanging charged with murder when she was 17 years old. Darabi has denied the charges.

In August 2004, Iran’s Islamic penal system sentenced a 16-year-old girl, Atefeh Rajabi, to death after a sham trial, in which she was accused of committing “acts incompatible with chastity”.

The teenage victim had no access to a lawyer at any stage and efforts by her family to retain one were to no avail. Atefeh personally defended herself and told the religious judge that he should punish those who force women into adultery, not the victims. She was eventually hanged in public in the northern town of Neka.

OMG. *throws up*

Wow...it's amazing how different a culture can think and be sometimes.

Someone should be hung, and not the teens.

My vote goes to hanging the judges....

you know, ive heard people say that one culture has no right to judge another... and all that BS.. but this is just plain wrong. how F'ed up is a society that allows for this to happen.

I don't care if its their culture, and I don't care how people define right and wrong.. there is no acceptable definition that could condone this... I will fully support any war or invasion the US desides to unleash on their country. maybe we aren't perfect, but we are certainly have a better grasp on the concept of civil rights and justice.

this just pisses me off.

That's sick. She was only defendng herself and her family member. I don't understand how some people think.

POWER TRIPS ... not thinking.. thinking is something that GOOD ZEALOTS don't do.