Woman hanged in Iran for killing her abusive husband - so far in 2025 35 women have been executed

[IwantToRetire]

The Iranian Judiciary had a 52-year-old woman called Zahra Fotouhi executed at dawn on Wednesday, September 17, 2025, in Tabriz Central Prison.

Zahra Fotouhi had been arrested five years ago on charges of killing her ex-husband and detained under a death sentence. She was a victim of domestic violence and harassment from her ex-husband.

With the execution of Zahra Fotouhi in Tabriz, the number of women executed in Iran since the beginning of 2025 has reached 35.

In the past 50 days since July 30, at least 11 women have been executed in Iran under the misogynistic clerical regime.

Article continues at https://wncri.org/2025/09/18/zahra-fotouhi-hanged-tabriz-central-prison/

About the the NCRI Women’s Committee https://wncri.org/womens-committee-of-iran-ncri/

When I read claims that ‘woman’ is a gendered social construct it gives me the absolute rage. These misogynistic men want us to deny our connection with the women in Iran and in non Western nations and instead agree that being a woman is coffee dates with the girlz and talking about make up.

That poor woman.

We're distracted from terrible stuff like this by the sodding TRAs who are forcing us to fight to retain our hard-won rights here.

Hat tip to all the men whose self-obsession reduces the support available to women living under regimes like this.
#sarcasm, in case anyone was wondering.

I am so beyond grateful that I was born in The UK sometimes. This is horrifying.

It’s so horrible. And that pic of her. It’s so disturbing.

She must have known she would be hanged, if found out, and killed him anyway. What hell she lived in!
I wonder what the sentence for a man killing his wife is

This is horrific but Iran unfortunately is executing hundreds of people every year and certainly for much more minor crimes than murder

Yes.

RIP

I wonder that an issue like this gets so few comments and yet Charlie Kirk killer living with transitioning man gets hundreds. Been watching this trend for some time. Doesn't make sense on a Feminist: Sex and Gender topic

Poor woman. No way to get away, no way to stay. Anyone who says the modesty measures and anti-women bias in Muslim countries helps females is talking crap.
They need more refuges and shelters over there.

I just wonder how many men have been executed in the same time period for the identical (murder of spouse) crime? That would be the telling answer.

https://wncri.org/2022/06/05/honor-killers-unpunished/

This article lists two laws relating to men murdering. One says "imprisonment for 3-10 years". Or he can pay blood money to her parents.
The other talks about infidelity - a husband has the legal right to kill both his wife and the affair partner.

There were over 250 "honour" killings of women and girls last year.

In 2023, Iran was responsible for 834 executions, 74% of all recorded executions in the world. The list of crimes punishable by death includes murder; rape; child molestation; homosexuality; drug trafficking; armed robbery; kidnapping; terrorism; burglary; incest; fornication; adultery; sodomy; sexual misconduct; prostitution; plotting to overthrow the Islamic government; political dissidence; sabotage; arson; rebellion; apostasy; blasphemy; extortion; counterfeiting; smuggling; recidivist consumption of alcohol; producing or preparing food, drink, cosmetics, or sanitary items that lead to death when consumed or used; producing and publishing pornography; using pornographic materials to solicit sex; capital perjury; recidivist theft; certain military offences ; "waging war against God"; "spreading corruption on Earth"; espionage; and treason.

Because the Kirk murder is still largely a mystery as to motivation. This is a depressingly familiar murder of a woman for standing up for herself in a country that does not recognise women as fully human, there's not a huge amount to discuss beyond how awful it is and how women don't have human rights there.

Also, we can do something about pushing back trans ideology. We have had many wins in the UK. Because we haven't yet lost all our sex-based rights as women in this country or the US. Not yet.

We can't do much about this other than write to our MPs and support charities helping women in these countries which I'm sure we're all doing. We can't change the laws in Iran or bring legal challenges there. Obviously it would be insane suicide for someone like Kellie Jay Keen to try and stage a 'let women speak' event in Iran. There's not so much to discuss.

The best thing we can do is retain women's rights here and in the US and do whatever we can to ensure there are routes here for women who want to leave. Plus pressuring our governments to try and exert pressure, and be a bit more pro women's rights internationally. Opposing trans ideology is part of ensuring that women retain full human rights in the UK and that Iranian and Afghan women can find refuge here.

Obviously any Iranian and Afghan women who do find refuge here will need single sex spaces to be able to participate fully in public life and speak up about the oppression they faced in their home countries.

RIP Zahra Fotouhi.

Also, I realise this may have been a drive by scolding rather than a genuine question but either way it made me think.

One other reason is that I do a lot more in real life about women's rights in Iran and Afghanistan. I have written to my MP and attended talks /events. I don't fear being attacked by angry men, losing my job, being arrested by police or being called a bigot for the view that women are oppressed in these countries. Thank goodness.

It's not quite as true now as it was, but it's still the case that institutions are captured and the risk to women is far higher of saying 'men can't be women and we don't want them in our spaces' than saying 'women in Iran are oppressed and killed for no good reason'.

Glinner was arrested by 5 armed police officers FFS. Possibly Charlie Kirk may have been killed because he didn't think men could become women. MN is a rare place we can have these discussions without being abused. Other discussions about women's oppression in other countries can be had elsewhere with far less (virtually no) personal risk.

@worksineducation definitely not a drive by scolding. I take all your points and really happy you've engaged. Nothing you've said answers why there are so many comments on purely trans issues. The Kirk killer, killed a man, not a woman, therefore one could hazard a guess he was angry at Kirk's trans comments but that makes this political and not feminist.

I have never feared commenting about TRA's (that probably makes me lucky) and I feel the spell has been broken, so it's now easy to stand up and be counted.

There are so many charitable organisations that still worship at the altar of woke that pursuing the the protection of women in countries like Afghanistan and Iran might draw these organisations back to their senses.

I feel sometimes that we're winning a battle but might be losing a war.

thanks for commenting

Well Charlie Kirk's stand on the trans issue WAS a feminist stance. I realise he probably wasn't much of a feminist in other ways. But stopping massive men hurting girls and women on the playing field is upholding women's rights. And he may have been specifically killed on that issue. Other women have suffered horrendous death threats, physical harm and intimidation of both them and their families (Kellie Jay Keen, Caroline Farrow, JKR.. the list goes on) so surely we're right to be concerned and to want to find out if saying men can't be women was the reason he was actually killed? I'm sure plenty of the most outspoken women on this are revising their risk assessments post Charlie Kirk's assassination.

Personally I don't see a huge difference between TRA ideology and extremist misogynist ideology of the rulers in Afghanistan and Iran. They come from the same place of not seeing women as fully human and only there to service males. We're lucky here in that we have the chance to fight back which the women in Iran and Afghanistan cannot do so easily. We owe it to them to do our best to protect our sex based rights which they will also need if they come here as refugees.

The trouble with the lack of wmen's rights in Iran and Afghanistan is there isn't a damned thing we can do about it. I sign petitions, email my MP, make donations here and there but really, WTF are the Taliban going to say about the British government disapproving?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Even the article last week about the deaths in childbirth and the fact the only maternity hospital had three women per single bed got the respoinse "This is an internal matter for the Afghan government." The Taliban and the Iranian government don't give a shit what the international community thinks, even if we could stir them to action.

I'm glad my daughter was born here and not there. My heart breaks for those living under such regimes.

100% agree - I think you said it better than me. But what's happened in Afghanistan and Iran is a cautionary tale. We have to fight for our own rights. Anyone woman thinks their country couldn't go the way of Afghanistan and Iran is in cloud cuckoo land - women used to have much freer lives in both those countries. Conversely, women didn't used to be able to vote here and rape in marriage was legal until relatively recently.

And we HAVE seen a huge, stealth, roll back of women's rights (and children's safeguarding) here in recent years. Rape conviction rates that effectively mean rape is rarely punished.

Yes, the very point is that the war for women's human rights is under threat worldwide. That's why we'd be fucking dimwits to say 'oh well we just have to BEEE KIND and INCLUSIVE of MEN and nothing bad will happen cos progressive' - this is a really important fight to win because if you can't describe a woman but are still oppressed as one (and when it's a man raping a woman or girl, they sure as hell know what a woman or girl is) then you can't fight for your rights or uphold them in the law.

I think there is a trend (increasing?) for some threads to allow those on FWR to speculate talk out loud, often on OPs that aren't like this one an actual fact, and / or most of us dont actually know that much.

Although some threads that start of about a specific issue then get hijacked by a few who really want to focus on an aspect of it.

Not forgetting those who deliberately start a whatabouterry post, which despite most agreeing that is better not to feed the trolls, too many cant stop themselves.

Not having bothered with the Kirk thread to begin with, I dont know if any of these apply.

On any number of issues does FWR give us the opportunity to talk about speculate in a way we cant IRL

Another aspect, which comes up on every thread about women in Afghanistan, is that despite FWR seeming to be forum when many are well informed, we dont (ironically) seem to be very well informed about support groups for women whether in Iran or Afghanistan, or indeed groups in our own country.