Shahrzad News: The value of human life has gone up in Iran. The official blood money rate – cash paid out as compensation when someone is killed – has risen 34 percent to $37,600 for a man and to half that amount for a woman.

According to the official IRNA news agency, Justice Minister Gholam Hossein Elham announced on Thursday March 30^th,  that the blood money rate has been set at 350 million rials for the current Iranian year which began on March 21. Under the Islamic laws which govern Iran, anybody who kills another person has to pay compensation – known as blood money or "diyeh" – to the victim's family. The family of the victim has the option of refusing payment and demanding the murderer’s execution.

A convicted murderer can avoid execution at the gallows by paying blood money to relatives who will accept it, but the killer may also be sentenced to serve a jail term.

Blood money is also built into vehicle insurance as compensation when traffic accidents are the cause of someone’s death.

The total amount paid out when a woman dies is still only half what is paid for a man’s life, although women's rights activists are campaigning to have women’s lives valued equally under Iranian law.

In 2003, the blood money rate for Iran's recognised religious minorities – Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians – was increased to equal the rate for other Iranians. Previously, the lives of members of these minority faiths had been valued at half that of a Muslim.  (source:  AFP)