Eye for An Eye: Iranian Supreme Court Upholds Sentence To Pour Acid In Eyes of Defendant

We have been following the grotesque sentencings handed down under Sharia law’s medieval principle of “an eye for an eye,” including the recent variation of a spine for a spine. One such case previously discussed involved an Iranian court ordering that acid be dropped in the eyes of an Iranian man after he blinded the husband of his lover. Now, that sentence has been reviewed and upheld by Iran’s highest courts as perfectly proper under Sharia law.

In Iran, the “an eye-for-an-eye, a tooth-for-a-tooth” principle is called “qisas” and the victim can withdraw the demand if the accused pays the “blood money” that they demand. This is all enforced by Iran’s “courts.”

The man is identified in these papers only as Mojtaba, and he allegedly threw acid in the face of Alireza, a taxi driver, after an illicit affair with the victim’s wife, Mojdeh. The crime occurred in Iran’s religious center, the city of Qom.

Iran’s supreme court agreed with Qom’s prosecutor, Mostafa Barzegar Ganji, that this is what is demanded by the Koran (Qu’ran).

In a bizarre effort to appear moderate, the prosecutors noted that they intend to enlist “forensic specialists to oversee the blinding by acid.

Notably, in the Saudi case, two hospitals refused to carry out the surgery to sever the spine of the man (and issue of medical ethics that we discussed at the time of the sentencing). It is not clear if the sentence was carried out.

In Egypt, however, surgeons did remove one eye in punishment for an acid attack.

Just one more example of the dangers of the lack of separation between church and state.

Source: Daily Mail

Jonathan Turley