RASC News Agency: In a deeply disturbing revelation that has sent shockwaves through migrant communities and human rights circles alike, the mutilated remains of Kobra Rezaei, a 22-year-old Afghanistani refugee, were discovered in the residence of an Iranian man in the town of Pakdasht, southeast of Tehran. Rezaei, who had vanished nearly 50 days earlier, was confirmed deceased after DNA testing identified her remains, which showed signs of acid mutilation a deliberate attempt by the perpetrator to obliterate forensic evidence. The suspect, identified only by the initials “A.Kh.,” is a 32-year-old married Iranian man who worked as a night guard at the same factory where Rezaei had been employed. He initially denied any involvement in her disappearance, but eventually confessed to the crime when confronted with mounting evidence, including mobile phone signal data that placed Rezaei at his home on the day she went missing.
According to Iranian media sources, the man allegedly flew into a “severe psychological breakdown” upon learning that Rezaei had recently become engaged. This fragile male ego sharpened by a broader culture of impunity toward violence against migrant women manifested in femicide. The charges against him include premeditated murder, dismemberment of the body, and attempted destruction of evidence using corrosive chemicals. Fragments of the victim’s body were first discovered in a garbage disposal site in the Pishva district, but were initially unidentifiable. It was only after additional body parts were uncovered near Pakdasht, and after technical analysis of mobile data, that police zeroed in on the perpetrator. When police raided his residence with a judicial warrant, they found further remains of Rezaei’s body, bearing unmistakable signs of acid erosion.
Her funeral was held under suffocating state surveillance on Tuesday, June 11, in what many observers described as a tightly controlled ceremony. Attendees were explicitly barred from filming or speaking to media outlets. Members of Rezaei’s family were instructed not to engage with journalists a silencing tactic that further reflects the repressive environment facing migrants and victims’ families alike. The presence of her sister, veiled entirely with her face covered, became a haunting symbol of the fear and intimidation pervading this case. A relative, speaking anonymously to Sources, revealed that the family has been subjected to intense pressure from local authorities, with informal warnings not to pursue retributive justice (Qisas). Activists have decried this attempt to pacify the family and erase public attention, calling it part of a larger pattern of institutional neglect when it comes to Afghanistani refugees in Iran.
This appalling act of gendered violence unfolds against the backdrop of escalating abuses faced by Afghanistani migrants in the Islamic Republic. In recent months, Iranian authorities have intensified their campaign of forced deportations, arbitrary detentions, and daily harassment of undocumented and impoverished Afghanistani families many of whom were forced to flee Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in search of basic dignity and security. While Iran touts its historical record of hosting Afghanistani refugees, the reality for many exiles particularly women is one of relentless vulnerability. Stateless, economically exploited, and often deprived of legal protection, migrant women like Kobra Rezaei find themselves trapped between two patriarchal regimes: the Taliban regime they fled, and the systemic indifference of a host country unwilling to safeguard their lives or rights.
The Taliban’s own policies of gender apartheid banning girls from education, excluding women from public life, and institutionalizing gender-based violence have fueled a mass exodus of Afghanistani women and youth. But for many, the exile has proven just as perilous. In countries like Iran, they are treated as expendable outsiders laborers without rights, victims without voice. Entekhab News, one of the few outlets to cover the case, labeled the incident a “heinous and unspeakable crime,” and called for full transparency in the prosecution process. Yet the tight control imposed at the funeral, and the overt silencing of the family, has led observers to fear that justice will be delayed or denied entirely.
As international attention turns once more to the intersection of gendered violence, migration, and authoritarian neglect, the brutal murder of Kobra Rezaei stands as a grim testament to how young Afghanistani women dispossessed by war, dehumanized in exile, and silenced in death are routinely failed by every system meant to protect them.
