Iranian Eye for an Eye Case - Updated

(Tehran, Iran) Ameneh Bahrami, 33, has pardoned her attacker, Majid Movahedi.

An Iranian man convicted of throwing acid in the face of a female student who was to have been blinded himself on Sunday in retribution was pardoned by his victim, the state-run television website said.

"With the request of Ameneh Bahrami, the acid attack victim, Majid (Movahedi) who was sentenced for 'qesas' ('eye for an eye'-style justice) was pardoned at the last minute" after she decided to forgo her right, it said.[…]

Bahrami told the ISNA news agency she pardoned her attacker because "God talks about 'qesas' in the Koran but he also recommends pardon since pardon is greater than 'qesas'."

"I struggled for seven years for this verdict to prove to people that the person who hurls acid should be punished through 'qesas,' but today I pardoned him because it was my right.

"I did it for my country, since all other countries were looking to see what we would do," she added.

Did it "for my country," eh? It's probably reasonable to suspect that Bahrami was subjected to a bit of arm-twisting.

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Iranian Eye for an Eye Case
[Previous 5/15/11 post]
(Tehran, Iran) In 2004, a male university student, Majid Movahedi, threw acid into the face of a female engineering student, Ameneh Bahrami, who had spurned his amorous advances.

Bahrami was blinded.

In November 2008, a criminal court ordered qisas (retribution) on Movahedi after he admitted throwing acid at Bahrami. The punishment allows Bahrami to blind Movahedi with acid.

Iranian media have reported that Movahedi will be blinded in both eyes but Bahrami, in an interview in 2009, said that the man would be blinded only in one eye because "each man is worth two women" under Iranian law.

The dropping of acid in Movahedi's eyes was scheduled for yesterday, but the imposition of the sentence was postponed due to mounting outrage expressed both inside and outside Iran.

Much of the public outcry in Iranian media, news websites, and blogs, surrounds the Iranian legal system, which produces such verdicts by practising an 'eye for an eye' approach to justice based on seventh century Islamic jurisprudence.

These principles effectively offer victims of violent crime two legal choices, forgiveness or qesas, analogous retribution. "Bahrami must sit in the place of the judge and either forgive her attacker or take revenge" says Asieh Amini, an Iranian women's rights activist living in Europe.[…]

Speaking on the interactive television program Saturday, Bahrami said she favored a more modern course, suing for damages. "I want him to be punished foremost. But if there are human rights considerations, then I'll accept two million Euros and his life imprisonment," she said.

Word has it that the government only acted to postpone the sentence because of the passionate internal Iranian outcry and it had nothing to do with international outrage.