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”. In most previous cases doctors had refused to cooperate with the officials. 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. Under Iranian law, victims or their families have the final say in such cases and can halt the punishment at any time. Islam’s Sharia law allows for qisas (retribution) but it also advises clemency. Iranian officials, worried about the increase in the rate of acid attacks, have endorsed retribution, but human rights activists condemn it as inhumane. It was not clear if he had carried out the attack for financial gain or whether he was related to the wife’s family. 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. The attacker will be able to plead with the plaintiff to spare him from being blinded fully.Īcid attacks have been rife in Iran in recent years, usually driven by family feuds. He was subsequently sentenced to be blinded in both eyes, paying a fine and 10 years imprisonment.Īlthough 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 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. “Medical staff who cooperate with the Iranian authorities in this act have broken the Hippocratic oath and cannot call themselves doctors,” he said. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, from Iran Human Rights (IHR), an independent NGO based in Norway, condemned the blinding as barbaric.
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