Iran Regime Publicly Flogs Woman 100 Times for Alleged Extramarital Affair

Reuters
Reuters

An Iranian woman was reportedly publicly flogged 100 times on Wednesday in the Iranian state of Isfahan for an alleged extramarital affair four years ago.

Iran’s state-run Serat News Agency first reported the incident, noting that the flogging was carried out in the city of Golpayegan. The woman, identified only by the initials S.T., is reportedly serving a 15-year prison term for the alleged murder of her husband in July of 2012; the 100 lashes had also been deemed part of her punishment at the time.

Serat News notes that S.T. had allegedly conspired with the man with whom she was having the affair in 2012. He was sentenced to death.

Among critics of the current regime are the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which called the flogging a “misogynist measure” and called the Iranian judiciary’s actions under President Hassan Rouhani’s government “extremely disturbing and abhorrent.”

NCRI activist Farideh Karimi condemned the act and added, “In view of the new wave of suppression of women in Iran, we urge women’s rights activists and organizations to stand up and speak out against the mullahs’ misogynist policies.”

The report is unique because Iran’s state-run media does not often report on the public floggings of women. In 2015, Iranian poet and activist Fatemeh Ekhtesari was sentenced to 99 lashes and an 11.5-year prison term for shaking hands with members of the opposite sex.

In October of 2014, the Iranian regime publicly executed 26-year-old Reyhaneh Jabbari, who was arrested in 2007 for the murder of Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, a former employee of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence. Sarbandi had attempted to rape her, and in an act of self-defense, she stabbed him with a pen knife.

Eli Lake of the Daily Beast pointed out around that time that “the autopsy of Sarbandi showed how the pen knife wound was itself not fatal. Instead, a second man (also with Iran’s intelligence service) came to the apartment at this time and murdered Sarbandi. In the trial, Jabbari only referred to this second man as ‘Sheikhi.'”

Jabbari confessed to Sarbandi’s murder while in police custody. However, this was the result of her being physically tortured into doing so. As Lake points out, this effectively illustrates how members of Iran’s intelligence and security services are above the law.

Iran Human Rights (IHR) estimated that Iran had executed at least ten women during the first half of 2015. They were killed by hanging.

Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter @AdelleNaz.

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