Iran | Child Bride Mahsa Akbari 21st Woman Executed in 2025

Mahsa Akbari, a woman on death row for murder, was executed in Shiraz Central Prison.

According to Tabnak, a woman was hanged in Shiraz (Adel Abad) Central Prison on 20 August 2025. The unnamed woman was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder. IHRNGO has established her identity as Mahsa Akbari.

An informed source told IHRNGO: “Mahsa was arrested for murder 2 years ago. She was married at 16 and her husband had forced her into participating in a robbery that had ended with the murder of a mother and her 3 young daughters.”

Mahsa’s husband and co-defendant, Sajad Molayi Hakani, was publicly hanged in Beyrom the day prior.

Mahsa Akbari is 21st woman execution recorded in 2025 and the 14th to be hanged for murder. Iran executes the highest number of women globally. In 2024, at least 31 women were executed for drug-related, murder and security-related charges in Iran, the highest number of recorded women executions in more than 15 years.

In January 2025, IHRNGO published a report titled “Women and the Death Penalty in Iran; a Gendered Perspective,” which sheds light on the contemporary experiences of women facing the death penalty, focusing on the discriminatory laws and societal factors that perpetuate their suffering.

Those charged with the umbrella term of “intentional murder” are sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) regardless of intent or circumstances due to a lack of grading in law. Once a defendant has been convicted, the victim’s family are required to choose between death as retribution, diya (blood money) or forgiveness.

Crucially, while an indicative amount is set by the Judiciary every year, there is no legal limit to how much can be demanded by families of the victims. IHRNGO has recorded many cases where defendants are executed because they cannot afford to pay the blood money. Should the victim’s family choose execution, they are not only encouraged to attend, but also to physically carry out the execution themselves.

According to IHRNGO’s 2024 Annual Report on the Death Penalty, at least 419 people including a juvenile offender and 19 women, were executed for murder charges, the highest number of qisas executions since 2010. Only 12% of the recorded qisas executions were announced by official sources. In 2024, Iran Human Rights also recorded 649 cases of families choosing diya or forgiveness instead of qisas executions. In the first 7 months of 2025, at least 310 people were executed for murder charges in Iran.

Source: Iran Human Rights, Staff, August 20, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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