Nazanin (Mahabad) Fatehi (Persian: نازنین فاتحی; born 1987) is an Iranian woman who was sentenced to death for stabbing a man who allegedly tried to rape her and her 15-year-old niece, when she herself was a 17-year-old.
After more than two years in jail, Fatehi was cleared of the intentional murder charge, ordered to pay diyeh (blood money for the death), and released on bail (January 2007).
[1] Nazanin Fatehi, as reported in the Iranian daily Etemaad, was 17 years old at the time of these events; she and her 15-year-old niece were traveling in a secluded park area near Karaj, their home, west of Tehran;[1][3] there, per the Amnesty International description of the case, a "group of youths surrounded the girls and tried to rape them".
[1] According to the account of the court proceedings in the Etemaad source, when being interrogated by the judge, Fatehi began to sob uncontrollably and yelled: "I did not want to kill him!
[1] According to the original Etemaad story, one of the boyfriends recalls the events in this way: "In an instant, three young men approached us in a threatening manner and said some horrible things to us.
Nazanin Fatehi was sentenced to qesas, to death in retaliation for murder, in January 2006,[1][4] by a criminal court of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
"I think cases like this are illustrative of the fact there is a serious human rights crisis in Iran; the death penalty, discrimination against women and a whole host of other concerns.
[3][6][7] Negar Azmudeh, a Vancouver-based immigration lawyer, helped the Campaign, arguing that the case demonstrated the unjust treatment of women in Iran.
Azmudeh told Canadian Television (CTV) that had Fatehi been killed by a man, he would likely not have received a death sentence "[b]ecause the value of his life would be twice as much as Nazanin's."
][citation needed] Her time in prison, initially for six months before the overturn of her sentence, but stretching eventually to two years, includes reports of being drugged and beaten.
Fatehi's father stood up and addressed the court, denying newspaper reports that Nazanin was a run-away and that he had told the Judges to go ahead with the execution.
A Judge replied that the claims appeared in their reports; the subsequent request by Nazanin's father for verification of the information led the court to acknowledge that the records did not support the injurious statements.