Execution Tales Chapter 63 Part 1 Revision 2
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[This is an abridged version of an article I found on a blog. As far as I know it is entirely factual. Original author unknown]
63: Tehran
The girls’ next trip abroad was provoked by the case of 28 year old Jennifer Bahrami. Jennifer had dual Iranian & British citizenship however the Iranian government didn’t recognize dual nationality & they regarded her solely as an Iranian citizen. She was accused of spying for Israel & the UK & despite the vehement denials of both London & Tel Aviv she was convicted & sentenced to death.
One of MG’s early short stories had been entitled “An Iranian Hanging” however faced with this opportunity they researched the issue further. The most useful information they found was an on-line Blog concerned with the execution by hanging of women in Iran
The Hanging of Women In Iran
According to a report published by the Organization of Women Against Execution in Iran in 1992 at least two thousand female prisoners were executed between 1981 & 1990. They estimated that round about two hundred of these were 16-20 years of age. Many of those put to death were high school & college students.
Hanging was the most common method of execution for women although some were shot. Men & women were hanged in groups in Tehran’s prisons from cranes & fork lift trucks. Each crane jib or fork lift had a wooden or steel beam to which the nooses were attached & once all was prepared the prisoners were simply hoisted into the air
One of the most notorious multiple executions concerned eight young Baha’i women. The Baha’i faith believed in the equality of men & women which was considered to be a very dangerous concept by the regime. They were arrested & tortured in an effort to persuade them to convert to Islam. They were all given the opportunity to avoid execution by recanting their faith & converting but none of them chose to.
On the night of June 18th 1983 they were driven in a bus to a polo field on the outskirts of Shiraz where a gallows had been erected. The bus driver who took them there reported that they seemed to be in good spirits, singing on the way & prepared to meet their fate.
The youngest prisoner was beautiful 17 year old Mona Mahmudnizhad. Her father had been hanged some months earlier for his beliefs. At the execution ground she asked to be hanged last so that she could comfort & pray with the other young women. Reportedly she kissed the noose & recited a prayer before she was suspended by the neck on the scaffold
Dina Parnabi was an Iranian high school student, accused of smuggling forbidden literature & criticizing the regime to her classmates. She was hanged on the 10th of July 1984 in a Tehran prison apparently still wearing her western style school uniform. The hanging was carried out in private & afterwards her body was stripped, washed & delivered for dissection at a medical school. In Iran young female bodies delivered for medical studies often had rope or cable burns around the necks indicating that they had been executed by hanging
On 26th of January 25 year old Masoumeh Fathi was hanged in Tabriz for killing a prison warder during an escape attempt.
On the same day Alieh Moradi & a male accomplice were hanged in Kermanshah for the murder of Alieh’s husband. Both executions took place within the prisons
On the 19th of March 2001 Fariba Tajiani-Emamqoli & four men were put to death in public for drug trafficking in Tehran. Fariba was attended by a woman prison officer & was blindfolded & had her hands tied behind her back. An American style coiled noose made from nylon rope was pulled down over her head & around her neck.
Like most public hangings in Iran the hydraulic crane of a recovery vehicle was used to hoist her into the air. It was reported that Fariba struggled on the rope for10 minutes before she swung limp. A crowd of about 200 had gathered to watch the event & chanted “Allah Akbar – God is great” & Death to the traffickers” as the bodies were left dangling for thirty minutes before being taken down
A truly scandalous execution took place on August 15th 2004 when 16 year old Atefeh Rajabi was hanged in public in Neka for “Engaging in acts incompatible with chastity”.
At her trial Atefeh wasn’t represented by a lawyer. She had to defend herself & told the religious judge, Haji Rezaii that he should punish the perpetrators of moral corruption not the victims. She further enraged the judge by removing her headscarf & he accused her of having a sharp tongue.
It was claimed that he pursued her execution beyond all normal procedures & finally gained the approval of the Supreme Court & the Chief of the nation’s judiciary branch. Her age was given in official court documents as 22 but her birth certificate has been reviewed by reliable sources & shows that she was actually just 16.
At the place of execution in the town’s square the judge personally put the rope around the girl’s neck & gave the signal for the crane operator to begin the hanging.
Witnesses reported that Atefeh begged for mercy & had to be dragged kicking & screaming to the execution truck. She apparently repeatedly shouted “Repentence” which according to Islamic Law was supposed to grant the accused an immediate stay of execution while an appeal is held.
It availed her nothing & she was hoisted into the air to slowly strangle to death. Judge Haji Rezaii said he was pleased to hang her & was quoted as saying “Society has to be kept safe from acts against public morality”
Several thousand Iranian females have gone to the gallows for various offences since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. They were of various ages & occupations, school teachers, students, workers, teachers & business women. What united them in their final hour was the method of their death. For females the noose became the standard & brutal method of execution.
Initially the Islamic Revolution promised Iranian women & girls a better life & society, but what they got was a theocratic government that took their rights away from them.
During the reign of the Shah, few Iranian females went to the gallows. Those that did were executed mainly for murder & their executions were rare in comparison with those of male criminals. A small number of female university students were known to have been hanged by SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police. They were executed for terrorism & died on a British style gallows that guaranteed a quick death from a broken neck
Traditionally Iran [Persia] was the first country in history to introduce hanging by the neck as a method of execution 2500 years ago. Previously females were simply strangled with a rope to preserve modesty. Hanging was seen as a simple & efficient method of punishment for both men & women.
However it is only since the Revolution that mass hanging of women & girls has been adopted as government policy. As a matter of course all unmarried women & girls are raped by the guards prior to execution, to ensure they cannot enter paradise. The condemned are allowed to rest for a day after the rape & during this time they are given a last chance of confessing more of their sins & provide any further useful information to the religious courts.
In the case of prison hangings while the women & girls await execution the gallows room is prepared. Ropes as well as steel cables are used & are no more than one inch in diameter. They are designed to dig into the neck, crush the larynx & inflict the maximum amount of pain after the moment of suspension.
To expedite the volume of executions the gallows room is designed to accommodate a special gallows designed for multiple hangings. A female has to be of someone of importance to be hanged alone. Most girls & women share the gallows together sometimes being executed up to six at a time.
The next day at the appointed time a cleric along with several guards wait for the condemned women & girls to enter the gallows room. Regardless of their age they are shown the gallows they will hang from & then a blindfold is applied to their faces covering their eyes. As a sign of humiliation their headscarves are removed & their necks & a portion of the upper chest exposed by unbuttoning the top blouse of a button or shirt.
They then have their hands bound behind them with a rope & are placed under the nooses. Very strong thin ropes or steel cables with simple slip knots are put around their necks, the slipknots carefully positioned at the side under the chins & pulled tight. Placing the slipknots here ensures that the victims don’t die too quickly as would be the case if they were located at the back of the necks. After suspension the prisoners’ windpipes will still be open for several minutes before they are slowly squeezed shut. During this time the fully conscious girls will feel the pain of the noose digging into their necks
There are different ways used to hang females in single executions. Sometimes they are hoisted up via a winch turned by two executioners or made to stand on a simple crate which is kicked out from under their feet. The observers wait patiently until the convulsions stop & leave the gallows room after the prison doctor pronounces the prisoner dead
During multiple hangings of up to six females all of the condemned mount a bench one at a time & wait to be noosed. During the adjustments of the nooses the prisoners are forbidden to talk & if they display any resistance to the executioner like putting their chins down on their chests If they do this they are yanked firmly by the hair to enable the noose to be slipped around their necks. When all of the prisoners have been noosed the religious judge reads out the death sentences after which the bench is kicked away
Since the drop is short the victims kick violently thrashing & choking. The hangings are designed to be prolonged ensuring a slow painful & complete strangulation. The prisoners swing & struggle beside each other about a meter apart until they expire
After they stop kicking & convulsing their bodies are examined by a prison doctor & left hanging for 20 minutes. They are then taken down, brought to the morgue, stripped & washed with a fire hose. Relatives could claim the bodies after signing for the death certificates & paying for the ropes used in the executions
The terror of the women held in Iran’s jails was vividly expressed by a former prisoner, “Mondays & Thursdays were hanging days & so on Sundays, Mondays, Wednedays & Thursdays we were terrified. We never knew when our turn would come. Some waited for weeks, months even years before they were executed. One night a young girl called Tahereh was brought to our cell. She had just been sentenced to death & was confused & agitated. She didn’t seem to know why she was there. She settled down to sleep next to me but kept waking up terrified & asking if she really would be hanged. I tried to comfort her & reassure her that it wouldn’t happen. However at about 4 a.m. she was taken away to be “Married” to a guard. She was executed two days later”.
63: Tehran
The girls’ next trip abroad was provoked by the case of 28 year old Jennifer Bahrami. Jennifer had dual Iranian & British citizenship however the Iranian government didn’t recognize dual nationality & they regarded her solely as an Iranian citizen. She was accused of spying for Israel & the UK & despite the vehement denials of both London & Tel Aviv she was convicted & sentenced to death.
One of MG’s early short stories had been entitled “An Iranian Hanging” however faced with this opportunity they researched the issue further. The most useful information they found was an on-line Blog concerned with the execution by hanging of women in Iran
The Hanging of Women In Iran
According to a report published by the Organization of Women Against Execution in Iran in 1992 at least two thousand female prisoners were executed between 1981 & 1990. They estimated that round about two hundred of these were 16-20 years of age. Many of those put to death were high school & college students.
Hanging was the most common method of execution for women although some were shot. Men & women were hanged in groups in Tehran’s prisons from cranes & fork lift trucks. Each crane jib or fork lift had a wooden or steel beam to which the nooses were attached & once all was prepared the prisoners were simply hoisted into the air
One of the most notorious multiple executions concerned eight young Baha’i women. The Baha’i faith believed in the equality of men & women which was considered to be a very dangerous concept by the regime. They were arrested & tortured in an effort to persuade them to convert to Islam. They were all given the opportunity to avoid execution by recanting their faith & converting but none of them chose to.
On the night of June 18th 1983 they were driven in a bus to a polo field on the outskirts of Shiraz where a gallows had been erected. The bus driver who took them there reported that they seemed to be in good spirits, singing on the way & prepared to meet their fate.
The youngest prisoner was beautiful 17 year old Mona Mahmudnizhad. Her father had been hanged some months earlier for his beliefs. At the execution ground she asked to be hanged last so that she could comfort & pray with the other young women. Reportedly she kissed the noose & recited a prayer before she was suspended by the neck on the scaffold
Dina Parnabi was an Iranian high school student, accused of smuggling forbidden literature & criticizing the regime to her classmates. She was hanged on the 10th of July 1984 in a Tehran prison apparently still wearing her western style school uniform. The hanging was carried out in private & afterwards her body was stripped, washed & delivered for dissection at a medical school. In Iran young female bodies delivered for medical studies often had rope or cable burns around the necks indicating that they had been executed by hanging
On 26th of January 25 year old Masoumeh Fathi was hanged in Tabriz for killing a prison warder during an escape attempt.
On the same day Alieh Moradi & a male accomplice were hanged in Kermanshah for the murder of Alieh’s husband. Both executions took place within the prisons
On the 19th of March 2001 Fariba Tajiani-Emamqoli & four men were put to death in public for drug trafficking in Tehran. Fariba was attended by a woman prison officer & was blindfolded & had her hands tied behind her back. An American style coiled noose made from nylon rope was pulled down over her head & around her neck.
Like most public hangings in Iran the hydraulic crane of a recovery vehicle was used to hoist her into the air. It was reported that Fariba struggled on the rope for10 minutes before she swung limp. A crowd of about 200 had gathered to watch the event & chanted “Allah Akbar – God is great” & Death to the traffickers” as the bodies were left dangling for thirty minutes before being taken down
A truly scandalous execution took place on August 15th 2004 when 16 year old Atefeh Rajabi was hanged in public in Neka for “Engaging in acts incompatible with chastity”.
At her trial Atefeh wasn’t represented by a lawyer. She had to defend herself & told the religious judge, Haji Rezaii that he should punish the perpetrators of moral corruption not the victims. She further enraged the judge by removing her headscarf & he accused her of having a sharp tongue.
It was claimed that he pursued her execution beyond all normal procedures & finally gained the approval of the Supreme Court & the Chief of the nation’s judiciary branch. Her age was given in official court documents as 22 but her birth certificate has been reviewed by reliable sources & shows that she was actually just 16.
At the place of execution in the town’s square the judge personally put the rope around the girl’s neck & gave the signal for the crane operator to begin the hanging.
Witnesses reported that Atefeh begged for mercy & had to be dragged kicking & screaming to the execution truck. She apparently repeatedly shouted “Repentence” which according to Islamic Law was supposed to grant the accused an immediate stay of execution while an appeal is held.
It availed her nothing & she was hoisted into the air to slowly strangle to death. Judge Haji Rezaii said he was pleased to hang her & was quoted as saying “Society has to be kept safe from acts against public morality”
Several thousand Iranian females have gone to the gallows for various offences since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. They were of various ages & occupations, school teachers, students, workers, teachers & business women. What united them in their final hour was the method of their death. For females the noose became the standard & brutal method of execution.
Initially the Islamic Revolution promised Iranian women & girls a better life & society, but what they got was a theocratic government that took their rights away from them.
During the reign of the Shah, few Iranian females went to the gallows. Those that did were executed mainly for murder & their executions were rare in comparison with those of male criminals. A small number of female university students were known to have been hanged by SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police. They were executed for terrorism & died on a British style gallows that guaranteed a quick death from a broken neck
Traditionally Iran [Persia] was the first country in history to introduce hanging by the neck as a method of execution 2500 years ago. Previously females were simply strangled with a rope to preserve modesty. Hanging was seen as a simple & efficient method of punishment for both men & women.
However it is only since the Revolution that mass hanging of women & girls has been adopted as government policy. As a matter of course all unmarried women & girls are raped by the guards prior to execution, to ensure they cannot enter paradise. The condemned are allowed to rest for a day after the rape & during this time they are given a last chance of confessing more of their sins & provide any further useful information to the religious courts.
In the case of prison hangings while the women & girls await execution the gallows room is prepared. Ropes as well as steel cables are used & are no more than one inch in diameter. They are designed to dig into the neck, crush the larynx & inflict the maximum amount of pain after the moment of suspension.
To expedite the volume of executions the gallows room is designed to accommodate a special gallows designed for multiple hangings. A female has to be of someone of importance to be hanged alone. Most girls & women share the gallows together sometimes being executed up to six at a time.
The next day at the appointed time a cleric along with several guards wait for the condemned women & girls to enter the gallows room. Regardless of their age they are shown the gallows they will hang from & then a blindfold is applied to their faces covering their eyes. As a sign of humiliation their headscarves are removed & their necks & a portion of the upper chest exposed by unbuttoning the top blouse of a button or shirt.
They then have their hands bound behind them with a rope & are placed under the nooses. Very strong thin ropes or steel cables with simple slip knots are put around their necks, the slipknots carefully positioned at the side under the chins & pulled tight. Placing the slipknots here ensures that the victims don’t die too quickly as would be the case if they were located at the back of the necks. After suspension the prisoners’ windpipes will still be open for several minutes before they are slowly squeezed shut. During this time the fully conscious girls will feel the pain of the noose digging into their necks
There are different ways used to hang females in single executions. Sometimes they are hoisted up via a winch turned by two executioners or made to stand on a simple crate which is kicked out from under their feet. The observers wait patiently until the convulsions stop & leave the gallows room after the prison doctor pronounces the prisoner dead
During multiple hangings of up to six females all of the condemned mount a bench one at a time & wait to be noosed. During the adjustments of the nooses the prisoners are forbidden to talk & if they display any resistance to the executioner like putting their chins down on their chests If they do this they are yanked firmly by the hair to enable the noose to be slipped around their necks. When all of the prisoners have been noosed the religious judge reads out the death sentences after which the bench is kicked away
Since the drop is short the victims kick violently thrashing & choking. The hangings are designed to be prolonged ensuring a slow painful & complete strangulation. The prisoners swing & struggle beside each other about a meter apart until they expire
After they stop kicking & convulsing their bodies are examined by a prison doctor & left hanging for 20 minutes. They are then taken down, brought to the morgue, stripped & washed with a fire hose. Relatives could claim the bodies after signing for the death certificates & paying for the ropes used in the executions
The terror of the women held in Iran’s jails was vividly expressed by a former prisoner, “Mondays & Thursdays were hanging days & so on Sundays, Mondays, Wednedays & Thursdays we were terrified. We never knew when our turn would come. Some waited for weeks, months even years before they were executed. One night a young girl called Tahereh was brought to our cell. She had just been sentenced to death & was confused & agitated. She didn’t seem to know why she was there. She settled down to sleep next to me but kept waking up terrified & asking if she really would be hanged. I tried to comfort her & reassure her that it wouldn’t happen. However at about 4 a.m. she was taken away to be “Married” to a guard. She was executed two days later”.
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Where did u get the 3rd/4th picture? The woman in red dress and black hood?, Any links of the video?
Honestly can't recall. Unfortunately I have no links to the video they have been taken from
In general do you like the Revision 2 postings - haven't had much feedback recently?
In general do you like the Revision 2 postings - haven't had much feedback recently?
do you know if they are executed in stockinged feet (shoes removed).........
Your really good at making stories and researching and reporting stories.
Apologies to all who message me - not been on this site for a while. Thank you for all the kind words.
FAO Nettle: Try Female Executions by Geoffrey Abbot
FAO: Dr D: Just found it on the net - no idea where it is from
FAO Nettle: Try Female Executions by Geoffrey Abbot
FAO: Dr D: Just found it on the net - no idea where it is from
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