According to the Hengaw Organization for Human RightsHer execution took place at dawn on December 3, 2025 in Tabriz Central Prison. Ms Faraj-oghli had been arrested two years earlier and sentenced to death after a legal proceeding that activists said failed to meet basic fair trial guarantees, it was reported.
She also described her marital existence as “a life that felt no different from death.” In one reported statement, she asked only to be “liberated from a life that resembled death.”
Iranian state media did not report her execution, a pattern activists say reflects efforts to conceal the scale of executions in Iranian prisons.
Faraj-oghli’s death is part of a broader trend of increasing executions of women in Iran. Human rights groups report that 57 women were executed in the country in 2025, up from 34 in 2024.
According to figures from the Women’s Committee of Human Rights Organizations, at least 320 women have been executed in Iran since 2007, mostly in cases of domestic violence, child marriage or acts of self-defense.
Analysts say executions in Iran have accelerated sharply under President Masoud Pezeshkian, with more than 2,600 people executed during his time in office. Activists say many of these cases, including Ms Faraj-oghli’s, highlight systemic failings in the judiciary, including limited access to legal representation, coerced confessions and disregard for the context of domestic violence.
Ms Faraj-oghli’s case has also drawn renewed attention to other women in similar circumstances. An example is Goli Koukhan, a 25-year-old who married at the age of 12 and is currently facing execution unless she raises £80,000 in blood money. Koukhan is said to have killed her husband after hitting her five-year-old son. Human rights observers note that she had no legal representation, could not read or write, and was immediately arrested after the incident.
Campaigners say these cases illustrate a recurring pattern of abuse survivors being criminalized rather than protected, especially women forced into marriage as children.
They emphasize that the combination of child marriage, domestic violence and harsh legal practices puts vulnerable women in extreme danger, often leaving them without legal or social recourse.
Faraj-oghli’s execution underlines the deadly consequences of such systemic injustice. Her case highlights the intersection of child marriage, long-term abuse and a justice system that routinely fails to take into account the circumstances of survivors. Advocates warn that without reforms, cases like hers will continue to occur, where women face the death penalty for actions committed in the context of coercion, abuse and desperation.
The international human rights community continues to closely monitor Iran’s execution practices and calls for greater transparency, protection of survivors of domestic violence and the abolition of the death penalty in cases involving coercion or self-defense.
Ms. Faraj-oghli’s death adds to mounting evidence of systemic gender-based injustice in Iran and highlights the urgent need for reforms to prevent further loss of life under conditions of abuse.
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