Another brutal “honor killing” has shaken Iran for the third time in less than a month, with the Islamic government trying to do damage control and avoiding blame for its policies of light punishment for the guilty perpetrators.
Referring to the latest honor killing said to have been committed with an ax, Kerman province's deputy police chief says, contrary to the widespread news, 22-year-old Rayhaneh Ameri was not killed by an ax.
"Rayhaneh's father killed her with an iron bar," the Deputy Police Chief in Iran's largest province insisted.
Furthermore, police in Kerman asserts that despite previous news circulated in Iran, Rayhan's father has regretted killing his 22-year-old daughter.
Since last Tuesday, Iranians on social media have been expressing their outrage about the news of the young girl being murdered by her enraged father.
In a detailed report on Tuesday, June 16, the local Rokna news agency said, "On Monday morning, when Rayhaneh's sister visited her parents' home, she found the house in a mess, while nobody was home."
After Reyhaneh's mother returned, Rokna adds, the two went to Rayhaneh's room and found garments soaked in her blood. Later, police found traces of blood leading to Rayhaneh's father's car.
Tracking the father's cell phone revealed that he had gone to the village nearby. Shortly afterward, he confessed to killing his daughter with an ax and throwing her away in the village.
According to Rokna's report, Rayhaneh's father confessed murdering his young daughter at eleven PM and based on a forensic report, Rayhaneh was alive two hours before police discovered what had happened but had died of profuse bleeding.
"Rayhaneh Ameri, another Romina; another young girl killed by her father's ax, merely for coming back home late. We are returning to the Stone and Ice Age, when they just hunted and killed animals to survive. They did not kill their own species," a social media user lamented.
Fourteen-year-old Romina Ashrafi was beheaded by her father in May after she eloped to marry a young man.
Nevertheless, a day later, the Deputy Police Chief in the province of Kerman, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Colonel Kourosh Ahmad Yousefi told the official news agency, IRNA, that Rayhaneh was not killed by an ax.
Rayhaneh's father was angry and, and while struggling with his daughter, he threw an iron bar at her which hit the 22-year-old girl's head and killed her, Colonel Yousefi maintained, adding that the father regretted his anger that led to the crime.
However, based on the initial reports, Rayhaneh's father had "proudly" confessed to murdering his daughter.
In the meantime, Rokna reported that he also tried to kill her in 2017, but she was "saved" by her sister.
The third honor killing comes after the murder of Romina Ashrafi, a teenage girl from Talesh, northern Iran, by her father with a sickle and the beheading of Ms. Fatemeh Farahi in Abadan by her husband, who was also her cousin.
Violence against women in the form of "honor killings" has triggered a wave of criticism on the country's social media and political space.
The violence in the murder of Romina Ashrafi was so shocking that even the Islamic Republic Supreme Leader's office reacted.
Khamenei’s official Twitter account cited him as calling for "harsh confrontation" with those "who consider the violation of women their right."
Under Islamic Republic law, a father who kills his child is not considered a murderer and is not punished by death.
Nonetheless, civil rights activists hope the three recent murders will change the law and at least punish the killers for the public aspects of the crime.
