SANANDAJ, Iran — In the dark of night, Sargul Habibi was in a car being been driven through Sanandaj, a city in the Kurdish west of Iran. She looked around warily, her black eyes wide with fear, her breathing getting heavier and louder. She knew that begging for mercy would not change her eventual fate; she could only wait for her brothers’ deliberation to end in a decision.
The decision made was to kill her. Sargul, a 31-year-old and the mother of two children, was stabbed to death by her brothers on November 29, after being caught with a man who wasn’t her husband at her home in the city’s Farah neighborhood, named after Farah Diba Pahlavi, wife of the overthrown Shah of Iran. The area is now officially known as Shuhada – martyrs in Farsi – but use of the name Farah persists among locals.
A relative who witnessed the lead-up to her death told Rudaw English of both the cooperation and resistance exhibited by members of Sargul’s family as that decision was made, then executed. The relative told the story of Sargul’s murder anonymously, fearing repercussions from other family members if they were to be revealed as a whistleblower.
The murder of women and girls like Sargul at the hands of their own family is a far from extraordinary event in Iran. The women and girls are often killed by their male kin – their fathers, brothers, and husbands – in the name of honour. There is no comprehensive data on the number of honour-based killings in the country, but Iran had reported 8,000 such murders between 2010 and 2014, according to an academic study published by the Iran-based Quarterly Journal of Social Development. According to Hengaw, a monitor of human rights violations against Kurds in Iran, at least three honour killings took place in Iran’s Kurdish west in the 12 months ending on November 29, 2020.
“It was past midnight, and we were at a relative’s house. Suddenly Sargul’s oldest brother Ismail got a call, and his face turned red when he picked up. He said we should get going,” the relative recollected.
“We went with Ismail to the police station in the Kamarbandi 25 neighbourhood [north Sanandaj]. When we got there, two of her other brothers, her husband, the man she was caught with, and two of the man’s brothers-in-law were at the station. Sargul was there, sat nervously in a chair,” said the witness, who did not want to be named.
Sargul’s brothers, husband and the brothers-in-law waited in frustration at the police station for the judge’s ruling. Her husband recounted, voice breaking, that he was on shift at his job as a guard when the man’s brothers in law called him, alerting him that a man was with his wife. The husband rushed home, but by the time he arrived the police were already there, he said.
Related: To kill your daughter in the name of honour
Sargul had been forced into her marriage by her family, Bayan Azizi, a local activist, researcher and acquaintance of a close relative of Sargul told Rudaw English. Her husband beat her, Azizi said; the man she was caught with was who she really loved.
“Nearly an hour later, the judge gave his verdict, deciding to give Sargul back to her brothers, Ismail and Hassan. They put her in Hassan’s car, and I insisted that I go with them,” the relative said.
“It rained heavily as Hassan sped out of the city. Sargul was shaking, wearing only a maxi dress on such a cold night. She was holding one of her hands up against her mouth, silent while I tried to calm the brothers down and asked them to let it go.”
The relative successfully managed to convince the brothers to stop at one of their homes and talk the situation through. They went to the house of Ismail, the oldest brother living in the Kamarbandi neighbourhood.
“His wife and son were distressed when we got there. His wife brought out a Quran, and told Hassan and Ismail to forgive her [Sargul] for the sake of that Quran,” the relative said.
“We stayed at Ismail’s place for about an hour. Hassan kept saying, ‘how can we keep our heads held high anymore?’ He said that the only solution was to kill her. They tried to grab Sargul, but Ismail’s wife and sons wouldn’t let them do it. Meanwhile, Sargul was not reacting, as though she were in a dream. Her lips looked as though they were weighed shut, and her skin had turned pale.”
Breaking the stalemate, Hassan suddenly got up to tell Ismail that they should take her. Ismail’s wife and son kept pleading with them, but it was useless. Ismail’s wife tried to force herself into the car with them but Hassan wouldn’t allow it. They drove out of town fast, towards the village of Ajgareh, the family’s place of origin. Like many residents of Sanandaj, Sargul’s family split their time between the place of their roots and their relatively new hometown. Sanandaj’s locals have a term for people living between the two worlds, juggling the norms of their tight-knit villages with the relative freedom and anonymity of the city; dozisti, or amphibian.
“It was around 3:00 am when Ismail’s wife, son, and I followed them in a separate car,” the relative said. They were driving very fast and we could not catch up in the rain, but we could see the backlights of their car from a distance.”
The car ahead eventually parked up close to a bridge. “We flashed them with our headlights, only to see Sargul on the muddy ground with Hassan’s foot on her chest. We immediately got out of the car, and Ismail’s wife screamed, pushing Hassan away. Hassan and Ismail continued until they left the scene. Sargul was bleeding from a knife wound on her neck, but she was still alive… we put her in the car to drive her to the hospital.”
Blood poured from a deep wound on Sargul’s neck, turning her dress red. More knife wounds marked her arm and shoulder. “We were getting close to Be’sat hospital in Sanandaj when Ismail’s wife started crying, and said that she was done for. She was already dead when we arrived at the hospital.”
Translation by Dilan Sirwan
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