Iran executes 23‑year‑old Marzie Niery under qisas sentence
Niery said she acted in self‑defence during an alleged rape attempt; authorities also issued multiple death sentences in a separate case.
Iran executed 23-year-old Marzie Niery early on Saturday morning at the central prison in Qazvin, authorities and rights groups report. Niery had maintained that she killed a man who attempted to rape her and was sentenced under the Islamic Republic’s qisas provisions.
According to human rights monitors, Niery was married under family pressure at 17. The incident that led to her conviction occurred in October 2021, when she was 18. At her trial she said one of her husband’s business partners, intoxicated, tried to attack her and that she wounded him with a kitchen knife in self-defence; her husband was also killed in the same clash. Niery turned herself in to police four days later after finding shelter with her brother.
Courts rejected self‑defence; families sought qisas
The court rejected her plea of self‑defence and the victims’ families demanded application of qisas — the “eye for an eye” principle in Islamic jurisprudence — which led to a death sentence. Human Rights in Iran recorded that Niery’s execution was at least the 14th execution of a woman in Iran since the start of this year.
The U.S. Department of State reported that at least 61 women were executed in Iran in 2025, the highest number in 25 years and roughly a 70 percent increase compared with the previous year. Rights groups say the murder of a spouse or partner is one of the most frequent grounds for qisas sentences against women; Iranian Human Rights notes at least 21 women executed last year were sentenced to qisas for killing husbands or fiancés.
Women’s rights organisations warn that many of those sentenced accused of killing intimate partners endured years of domestic abuse. They point to forced child and early marriages, economic dependence, limited access to divorce and weak legal protections as factors that leave women with few options to escape violent relationships.
On the same day, judicial authorities in Mazandaran province announced that Koltum Akbari had been sentenced to ten death penalties under qisas for ten murders. The case opened in September 2023 after the suspicious death of an 82-year-old man in Mahmoudabad who had entered into a temporary marriage with Akbari months before he died. After her arrest Akbari admitted to killing several older men, many of whom she had lured into temporary marriages; authorities confiscated her movable and immovable property. The family of an eleventh alleged victim chose financial compensation rather than the death penalty; investigators say the true number of victims may be higher.
Iran remains among the world’s most prolific users of capital punishment. Human rights groups recorded at least 1,639 executions in Iran during 2025 — the highest annual total since 1989 and an average of more than four executions per day. Amnesty International noted that only 17 countries carried out executions that year and ranked Iran second only to China. Activists warn executions could rise further in 2026, citing nationwide protests that began in December 2025 and heightened tensions with the United States and Israel. Amnesty maintains its opposition to the death penalty in all cases.
Photo: EPA/ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH
