A man in the north-western Iranian province of West Azerbaijan has shot and killed his 15-year-old daughter, in what local media described as the ninth "honor killing" perpetrated by a father in Iran since March.
Media reports said that the slaying of Zilan Eyvazi took place on the morning of July 7 when gunshots echoed through the village of Ziveh, West Azerbaijan province.
The reason behind the killing was an SMS message received by the teenager, according to Etamad newspaper. Some reports said she was killed after her father discovered she was engaged in a relationship with a boy.
The paper quoted sources as saying that her father had exhibited violent behavior toward Zilan and her siblings in the past and engaged in altercations with other villagers.
Zilan's uncle said that the teenage girl had three younger sisters and a brother and had been deprived of education for the past three years.
The exact number of murders known as “honor killings” in Iran is unknown, but in December 2019, the state-run ISNA news agency reported that between 375 and 450 such killings occur annually across the country.
Many in Iran have blamed the Islamic legal system as well as the country's patriarchal culture and traditions for fostering an environment that allows for "honor" killings .
Two such killings, in which a 37-year-old woman and a 17-year-old teenager lost their lives at the hands of their own fathers, took place in the western Iranian provinces of Kurdistan and Ilam on June 3 and June 6.
In yet another “honor” killing case, a 24-year-old woman named Shirvan was murdered by her father in West Azerbaijan province on May 9.
A week earlier in the village of Damrostan, Lorestan province, a father took the life of his 29-year-old daughter after she divorced from her husband.
The woman, named Masoumeh, was 15 years old when she married a significantly older man suffering from drug addiction.
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