Iranian court sentences woman to death despite self-defence claim in assault case

Iran executed 23-year-old Marzieh Nieri at Qazvin Central Prison after a court rejected her claim that she acted in self-defence against a sexual assault, according to Euronews.

Nieri, forced into marriage at 17, said she wounded a man with a knife in 2021 after he tried to assault her; her husband also died in the confrontation.

She surrendered days later, but the victims’ families invoked qisas, Islamic retribution law, securing her death sentence. Her execution brings the number of women executed in Iran this year to at least 14, amid sharply rising execution rates nationwide.