Page 9 - IRANRptAug19

across their region, and they speak a form of the Iranian language.
South Ossetia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmitry Medoyev said in an interview with the Persian-language news website, that he hopes to boost relations with Iran, but he did not discuss how he would get around the blockade from Georgia which does not accept South Ossetia's self-declared independent status, which is backed by Russia.
He added that the South Ossetian government was seeking to expand its cooperation with the country through trade and investment.
Iran has not officially recognised South Ossetia as a state, but continues discussions with both the breakaway region and Georgia.
During 2018, Iranians made up the fifth biggest group of foreigners to visit urban and Black Sea coast locations of Georgia.
"From January to October, a total of 7.5 million tourists visited the former Soviet republic, about 262,000 of whom were Iranians," Giorgi Chogovadze, the head of Georgian National Tourism Administration said, according to a Sputnik report published in December 2018.
2.6 Iran Supreme Court equalises restitution for men and women after long debate
The Supreme Court of Iran has decided that restitution paid out for males and females will be the same value, Fars News Agency reported on July 3. From now on, “blood money” paid in the event of a death of a family member will be paid at the same value to the victims' heirs for male and female victims of murder, bodily harm, or property damage, moving away from the 1979-installed Sharia Law introduced by the Islamic Republic.
The law was accepted by the Supreme Court of Iran, following its endorsement of an earlier law passed by the Iranian parliament and approved by the Guardian Council – the body which vets all laws.
Restitution, “Diyah” in Islamic law, is the financial compensation paid to the victim or heirs of a victim in the cases of murder, bodily harm or property damage, which was introduced in the place of previous laws which existed before the Islamic revolutionaries took over the country.
Diyah only applies when the victim’s family wants to compromise with the guilty party; otherwise Equal Restitution “Qisas” applies.
Under the previous restitution laws, a woman’s life, property or body was worth half of a man’s. However, concerted efforts by female lawyers and judges in Iran over the years have managed to bring the issue to the forefront of debate. Iran’s parliament first began altering the so-called “blood money” law in 2009, in which they altered the payout for victims of car crashes, arguing that when policyholders – both men and women – pay equal amounts for their insurance, they must be paid equally.
9 IRAN Country Report August 2019 www.intellinews.com