Marzieh Nieri was sentenced to death under the principle of retribution after killing a man in self-defense. Her execution on Saturday in Qazvin further exposed the brutality of Iran's judicial system, which has already executed 14 women since the start of the year.
In the Iranian city of Qazvin, 23-year-old Marzieh Nieri was executed at dawn on Saturday. She had claimed in court that she killed a man while defending herself from a sexual assault attempt. Her case, which drew international attention, sheds light on the harshness of Iran's legal system and, in particular, its application of the Islamic principle of retribution known as qisas.
According to the organization Iran Human Rights, Nieri was forced into marriage at just 17. The fatal incident occurred in October 2021, when she was only 18. During the trial, she recounted how her husband's business partner, who was drunk, attempted to sexually assault her. In an attempt to defend herself, she wounded him with a kitchen knife, but in the ensuing struggle, her husband was also fatally injured.
Four days after the incident, Nieri turned herself in to the police, hoping, it is believed, that the judicial system would take her version of events into account. However, the court rejected her claim of self-defense. The families of the deceased demanded the application of qisas, leading to the death sentence.
Qisas is a principle of retribution rooted in Islamic legal tradition that grants the victim's family the right to demand the execution of the perpetrator. Alternatively, the family may agree to financial compensation, known as diyya, or blood money. In such cases, the death penalty is carried out only if explicitly requested by the closest relatives of the deceased, which is what happened in the case of Marzieh Nieri.
Iran Human Rights notes that Nieri is at least the fourteenth woman executed in Iran since the beginning of 2026. According to their data, Iran is the country with the highest number of executions of women in the world.
The Iranian regime continues to resort to the death penalty on a large scale, placing it among the few states with such a high execution rate. Human rights organizations have recorded at least 1,639 executions during 2025, the highest annual number in the country since 1989.
The execution of Marzieh Nieri took place in the central prison in Qazvin, and the news resonated further after being reported by Euronews. Her fate has become a symbol of systematic repression against women and the lack of basic justice in self-defense cases, once again drawing sharp criticism from international human rights organizations against the Tehran regime.
