Eye for an eye:
Iran blinds acid
attacker
Medics gouge out man’s eye in first
known case where retribution ruling has
been carried out, amid condemnation
from human rights groups

In 2011, Ameneh Bahrami, an Iranian
woman who was blinded in an acid attack,
pardoned her assailant.
.
In a literal application of the sharia law of
an eye for an eye, an Iranian man
convicted of blinding another man in an
acid attack has been blinded in one eye,
marking the first time Iran has carried out
such a punishment.
The convicted acid attacker, who has not
been identified, was rendered
unconscious in Rajai-Shahr prison in the
city of Karaj on Tuesday as medics gouged
out his left eye, according to the state-
owned Hamshahri newspaper.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, from Iran
Human Rights (IHR), an independent NGO
based in Norway, condemned the
blinding as barbaric. “Medical staff who
cooperate with the Iranian authorities in
this act have broken the Hippocratic oath
and cannot call themselves doctors,” he
said.
The man had been found guilty of
throwing acid in the face of his unnamed
victim five years ago in the city of Qom,
blinding and disfiguring him for life. He
was subsequently sentenced to be blinded
in both eyes, paying a fine and 10 years
imprisonment.
Although the convict was sentenced to
lose sight in both eyes on Tuesday, the
victim – who, under Iranian law, has the
final say in the punishment – decided at
the last minute to postpone the blinding
of his right eye for six months. The
attacker will be able to plead with the
plaintiff to spare him from being blinded
fully.
Acid attacks have been rife in Iran in
recent years, usually driven by family
feuds. Hamshahri reported that the man
in this case had been hired by the
relatives of his victim’s wife to take
revenge on their behalf. It was not clear if
he had carried out the attack for financial
gain or whether he was related to the
wife’s family.
Iranian officials, worried about the
increase in the rate of acid attacks, have
endorsed retribution, but human rights
activists condemn it as inhumane.
Islam’s Sharia law allows for qisas
(retribution) but it also advises clemency.
Under Iranian law, victims or their
families have the final say in such cases
and can halt the punishment at any time.
Other acid attackers have also been
sentenced to be blinded in Iran , but this
is the first known case where the
punishment has been carried out. In most
previous cases doctors had refused to
cooperate with the officials.
Raha Bahreini, a researcher with Amnesty
International’s Iran team, said that
punishing someone by deliberately
blinding them is “an unspeakably cruel
and shocking act”.
She told the Guardian: “Blinding is totally
prohibited under international law, along
with stoning, flogging, amputation and
other forms of corporal punishment
provided in Iran’s Islamic penal code and
must not be carried out under any
circumstances.”
Instead of meting out such macabre
punishments, Bahreini said Iranian
authorities “should raise awareness about
violence including root causes, ensure
that perpetrators of acid attacks are
punished with appropriate and
proportionate penalties consistent with
international human rights norms, and
survivors are provided with effective
remedies, including compensation and
psychosocial and medical rehabilitation.”
Another man, identified only as Hamid,
was also scheduled to be blinded in Karaj
on Tuesday, but his punishment was
postponed at the request of his victim,
Davoud Roshanaei.
“Hamid was about to be rendered
unconscious on the bed when his father
entered the room and asked me for more
time,” said Roshanaei, who has been
disfigured and lost sight in one eye as the
result of the assault. “I gave them two
more months to provide me with
compensation for my treatment.”
In a highly publicised case in 2011,
Ameneh Bahrami, a victim of an acid
attack, received international praise after
pardoning her attacker hours before
surgeons prepared to blind the man with
acid. Bahrami was disfigured and blinded
in both eyes because she had repeatedly
spurned her attacker’s offer for marriage.
Last year, a spate of acid attacks on young
women in Iran’s top tourist destination,
Isfahan, caused national horror and
outrage. Activists claimed that unlike
other cases across the country, victims in
Isfahan had been targeted by hardliners
for wearing clothes deemed
inappropriate. The authorities have
vehemently denied this charge. CULLED