In Iran, women seeking justice for rape face a system that reopens their wounds — forcing them to relive trauma in courts that offer punishment without protection, and laws with no room for mercy, a report by leading reformist newspaper Shargh said.
The report is by Niloufar Hamedi, the journalist who — along with Elaheh Mohammadi — was jailed for covering the in-custody death of Mahsa Jina Amini, an act of reporting that helped ignite the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.
In her latest piece, They Rape You Once; You Die a Thousand Times, Hamedi gives voice to women who say that pursuing justice can be as punishing as the assault itself. Their accounts reveal a system that forces survivors to relive their trauma while offering little protection or empathy.
"Rape happens once, but its shrapnel pierces the survivor’s heart again and again," one woman, who remained anonymous for her safety, told Shargh.
For three years, she traveled nearly 900 kilometers from her hometown to Tehran to pursue her case, appearing repeatedly before lawyers, judges, and investigators.
The courts drag out the case, forcing survivors to recount their assaults again and again — a process that reopens their wounds and turns the pursuit of justice into another form of punishment, the women were quoted as saying in the article.
Another survivor, identified only as Sh, said: "The body’s natural defense tries to erase painful memories so you can move on — but in my case, I couldn’t erase anything. Each time I retold what happened, my whole body relived the trauma."
Death sentence for rapists
The newspaper report highlights a justice system that reopens wounds rather than healing them, and a penal code that offers only one punishment — death — leaving survivors with no other legal recourse.
"Many of us don’t want the perpetrator executed," one woman said, "but the law offers no other path."
Beyond the courts, the article explores a culture that blames victims and protects abusers.
Sociologist Mahsa Asadollahnejad told Shargh that humiliation is "the deepest wound" and that indifference allows it to spread.
Without naming officials, Hamedi’s report exposes a broader failure — laws that leave no space for mercy, a judiciary that retraumatizes, and a culture that silences.
Her restrained tone allows the women’s voices to speak for themselves, revealing the quiet persistence of systems that claim moral authority yet perpetuate harm.
“Economic reforms and progress are meaningless without energy reform,” Ghalibaf said in a speech on Monday. “With the current energy situation, can we expect proper efficiency? Everything about it is completely wrong,” he said.
The government’s priority, he added, was not to raise prices but to restructure the energy sector. “This does not mean we want to increase energy prices – that has its own method. Raising prices is not the first step; there are several stages before that,” Ghalibaf said.
The comments come amid growing conjecture in Iranian media over a possible imminent increase in gasoline prices. Last week, President Masoud Pezeshkian said there was no doubt that fuel prices would eventually need to rise, though he acknowledged that such a move could worsen economic hardship for ordinary Iranians.
“It’s not that simple,” Pezeshkian said. “Of course it must be done, that’s obvious, but it can’t be done overnight,” he added.
Call for fair energy use
Ghalibaf described the first step in energy reform as what he called popularization, suggesting that the country’s vast energy resources must benefit all citizens equally. “This is public wealth and must reach the people fairly. It’s not acceptable that 46 percent of the population fully benefits from part of this energy while 52 percent get nothing,” he said.
Changing consumption habits, he added, is essential to avoid waste. “If culture improves, energy consumption will improve. We cannot have the heater on while people sit at home in undershirts,” he said.
The parliament speaker did not elaborate on the mechanism of the proposed popularization plan. His remarks come as Iran, despite possessing the world’s second-largest natural gas reserves, faces chronic energy shortages that disrupt industries and daily life.
In recent months, widespread blackouts and gas shortages have forced temporary shutdowns across several provinces, exposing what officials themselves have described as deep structural and managerial failures in the energy sector.