Iran frees child bride sentenced to death over husband's killing: activists
Iranian authorities have freed a woman who was condemned to hanging over the killing of her husband who she married while a child, in a case that sparked international concern over the plight of women sentenced to death in the Islamic republic, rights activists said on Friday.
Iranian authorities confirmed the freeing of Goli Kouhkan from prison in the northern Golestan province after her death sentence was revoked earlier this week under an accord with the dead man's family.
Kouhkan, a member of the Baluch minority without documentation and now aged 25, had been set to be executed this month over the 2018 killing of her husband who according to rights groups was violently abusive towards her and their child.
Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) said that she had been spared execution and then released after so-called blood money -- diyah under Iran's Sharia law -- was raised to pay her husband's family for the loss of life.
Iranian state television quoted the chief of the judiciary in the Golestan province Heydar Asiabi as saying she had been released on Thursday. It posted a picture of her with officials in a chador with her back to the camera.
UN rights experts last week urged Iran to halt the execution of Kouhkan, saying she was forced into marriage at the age of 12 to her cousin and at 13 gave birth to their son, with both mother and child suffering violent abuse from the husband.
According to IHR's current toll, Iranian authorities have executed more than 40 women this year alone. Many of those executed were convicted of killing their husband, who was in some instances abusive or a close relative.
The Islamic republic has stepped up its use of capital punishment this year with at least 1,426 people hanged up until the end of November, according to IHR.
The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran Mai Sato said while "we celebrate one life saved, we cannot ignore the institutional injustices that nearly killed Goli Kouhkan".
"Goli was sold into marriage as a child and subjected to domestic violence in a country where such violence is not properly criminalised," she wrote on X.
IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: "Unfortunately Goli's story is not unique. So far in 2025 at least two child brides have been executed in Iran."
She was sentenced to death along with her husband's cousin who she had called when the husband had been beating her and her son. A fight then broke out in which the husband was killed.
IHR says that the cousin, Mohammad Abil, "remains on death row and at risk of execution".
