Iran: Man Sentenced To Forced Blinding In Retaliation
A Criminal Court in Tehran recently sentenced a 45-year-old man to forced blinding as qisas, the Islamic term for “retaliation” According to the state-run Mashreq News website, this case started in June 2018 when two neighbors got into a fight. One of the men sustained an eye injury and was taken to the hospital. The injured man, who lost his right eye because of the fight, filed a complaint against his neighbor. The 45-year-old man was detained but said he did not mean to blind his neighbor’s eye.
This is not the first time the regime has handed out shocking retribution sentences.
In February, a man was sentenced to amputation, in addition to other charges, in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, in southwestern Iran. The man was detained for injuring a state environmental agent. He was sentenced to qisas, a financial penalty, prison, and confiscation of weapons. The report did not mention which part of his body would be amputated.
In May 2020, a 30-year-old woman who had blinded a man by throwing acid in his face was literally sentenced to an eye for an eye in northeastern Iran. The court sentenced her to “eye retribution” or forced blinding. According to the court ruling, she is to be blinded in both eyes, but her eye sockets should stay intact.
In November 2020, Amnesty International called the forcible blinding of a man in 2015 by the regime an “unspeakably cruel and shocking act”. “Punishing someone by deliberately blinding them is an unspeakably cruel and shocking act,” said Raha Bahreini, Amnesty International’s Iran Researcher in 2015.
