The Murder of 14-Year-Old Romina Ashrafi

FARNAZ FASSIHI, JOURNALIST, NEW YORK TIMES: Romina Ashrafi was a 14-year- old from a remote village in the Caspian region, in the northwest of Iran, and she apparently been courted by an adult man, a 29-year-old, for two years when her so-called boyfriend approached the family and asked for her hand or asked to marry her, her father declined and she ran away. She ran away. The father found them after three days and return — convinced the judge to return Romina to him despite the fact that Romina had told the judge that her life was in danger. Her father, when he found out that she had boyfriend had threatened to kill her, had even brought rat poison and told her to kill herself so he doesn’t have to do it for her. She ran away. When she was returned 24 hours later, he beheaded her in her bedroom while she was sleeping. This story kind of exploded on Iran, on social media on Iran, it was on the front page of every newspaper with her picture, this innocent smiling girl with a blue scarf on the cover of every newspaper and magazine. And it really shocked Iran, because, you know, we perceive that honor killings are rare  in Iran. But actually, when I started reporting the story, I discovered that according to Iranian government’s own statistics, about 30 percent of all murders annually are so-called honor killings. Killings of women by the hand of a male relative who, according to Iran’s law, is the legal guardian. And this story sort of became this moment of national reckoning in Iran. It really generated a lot of public debate about the status of women’s rights, about the lack of laws that protect women. There’s a legislation sitting in the parliament for eight years now that is supposed to criminalize violence against women and that has gone through multiple parliaments and administrations and hasn’t passed into law. And people are asking why, why are men not held accountable for these acts of violence?