Gender Discrimination in Iran’s Capital Punishment System

Abstract

This study explores gender discrimination and sex bias in Iran’s capital punishment system, reviewing the story of women on death row in Islamic and totalitarian criminal justice systems. It reaches back to the classical Islam to trace how and why sharia law discriminates against women. It discuses original findings and is the first research to focus on execution of women in Iran. A small but emerging body of literature focuses on capital punishment in Iran but does not examine gender in detail. The role of Iran’s Islamic criminal justice system for women, particularly in the context of changes and gender bias after the Islamic revolution, is examined. There is substantial literature on mariticide (women killing their husbands) and filicide (women killing their children), but insufficient literature on gender discrimination in Iran’s capital punishment system. This study provides a profile of 155 women and examines how decision-making in an Islamic criminal justice system has influenced these cases.

Keywords:

• Death penalty
• women
• Iran
• gender discrimination
• gender bias
• Islamic criminal justice

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Correction

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08974454.2023.2278335).

Notes

1 Imam Khomeini’s version of Twelver Shiism was unique and that it was not shared by all the other Islamic jurists.

2 Ibid., 58.

3 The author did not conduct primary research on human participants, but instead consulted the research of others.

4 It is necessary to mention many individuals executed in Iran are identified by initials or not identified at all.

5 Islamic Penal Code of Iran, Art 262 (2013) [In Farsi].

6 Corruption on Earth crimes is a vague definition. Under the Islamic Penal Code of Iran, Corruption on the Earth is not a crime, its definition can be attributed to crimes that include waging war against prophet and God, setting ablaze a mosque, destroying state property during internal rebellious, and any criticism of state (crimes against public order).

7 Theft is legally defined in Iran as the act of taking other people’s property without any lawful claim to it. The punishment for theft is in the Holy Quran: “As to the thief, male or female, cut of his or her hands as punishment by way of example from God for their crime. And God is exalted in power.” According to a tradition of Prophet Mohammad, this punishment does not apply to petty larceny. However, the classical Islamic jurists differ as to the definition of petty larceny in terms of value of the stolen item. For this reason Islamic Penal Code regulates 16 different thefts and just punishment of one category of theft is amputation.

8 Islamic Penal Code of Iran, Art 136 (2013). [In Farsi]

9 Anti Narcotics Drug Act (1988) [In Farsi].

10 These are documented cases of lawful executions of females and exclude unauthorized killings.

11 Reyhaneh Jabbari and Sahar Mahabadi cases are represented by a skilled lawyer (Mr. Jedari Foroughi). See the following link: http://www.asriran.com/fa/news/342230/آخرین-وضعیت-پرونده%E2%80%8Cهای-ریحانه-جباری-و-سحر-مهابادی

12 Islamic Penal Code of Iran Arts. 156, 302 (2013).

13 Similar provisions appear in the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, which exclude execution of “pregnant women or mothers having dependent infants, for an offence related to the armed conflict” (Protocol I, article 76 (3)) and “pregnant women or mothers of young children” (Protocol II), article 6 (4)).

14 Iran Civil Code [C.CIV] Art. 1210-1 (1991).

15 Islamic Penal Code of Iran[C. PEN] Art 147 (2013).

16 Rape itself is a crime in Islamic criminal justice systems, but it is so difficult to prove and men are rarely convicted.

17 In Islam stoning (rajm), which is one of the punishments originally, came from hodoud (hodoud are punishments that the kind, the quantity and the quality of them are determined in shariah) is the penalty of adultery.