SubscribeFour years ago, a spurned suitor poured a bucket of sulfuric acid over [Ameneh Bahrami's] head, leaving her blind and disfigured. Late last month, an Iranian court ordered that five drops of the same chemical be placed in each of her attacker's eyes, acceding to Bahrami's demand that he be punished according to a principle in Islamic jurisprudence that allows a victim to seek retribution for a crime. The sentence has not yet been carried out.
Perpetrators of these attacks throw acid at their victims (usually at their faces), burning them, damaging skin tissue, often exposing and sometimes dissolving the bones. The consequences of these attacks include blindness and permanent scarring of the face and body. These attacks are common in Cambodia, Afganistan, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and other Asian countries.Acid attacks are being used in Afghanistan against women and girls to as part of an effort to oppress them. Specifically, girls who attend school are being targeted to prevent them from getting an education.
The phrase "an eye for an eye", (Hebrew: עין תחת עין ayin takhat ayin)(in arabic "العين بالعين") is a quotation from Exodus 21:23–27 in which a person who has taken the eye of another in a fight is instructed to give his own eye in compensation. At the root of the non-Biblical form of this principle is that one of the purposes of the law is to provide equitable retaliation for an offended party. It defined and restricted the extent of retaliation. [emphasis mine]Meaning, the initial formulation of "an eye for an eye" wasn't as a warning to prevent such punishments, but to encourage them because the custom at the time was to respond with an even harsher punishment to a crime. The phrase was trying to instill a sense that you would engage in an equal punishment, and not something even more harsh.
When the judge asked whether he was ready for his punishment, Movahedi said that he still loved Bahrami but that if she asked for his eyes to be taken out, he would seek the same punishment for her.DUDE. Seriously? YOU ALREADY DID, ASSHAT.
"They must also completely empty out her eyes, since I'm not sure that she cannot secretly see," he said. "The newspapers have made this a huge case, but I haven't done anything bad."Oh yes, the Iranian equivalent of "she made up the rape" -- she's FAKING HER EYEBALL DAMAGE. Why, I didn't pour acid on her, it was a bucket of fluffy kittens. Yeah. Screw that. Eyedropper away.
...She and her friends felt sorry for a sometimes bedraggled younger student named Majid Movahedi, so they collected sweaters and pants and asked a university staff member to pass them on to him....So in light of those tidbits, I don't really feel too bad about assuming mental illness. We are not talking about a paragon of mental stability here. The man has problems that seem to go a little bit beyond his propensity for throwing buckets of acid at the object of his undying love.
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Bahrami left a deep impression on Movahedi, even though the two had never spoken.
"He was absolutely crazy about her," said Aziz Movahedi, Majid's father. "At periods he would lock himself in his room, saying he only wanted to marry her."...
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"I remember him as a strange boy with an obsessive stare," she said.
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Movahedi, refusing to be turned down, began waiting outside her workplace and stopping her in the street, crying that he would kill himself if she didn't marry him.
***
When the judge asked whether he was ready for his punishment, Movahedi said that he still loved Bahrami but that if she asked for his eyes to be taken out, he would seek the same punishment for her.
"They must also completely empty out her eyes, since I'm not sure that she cannot secretly see," he said. "The newspapers have made this a huge case, but I haven't done anything bad."
At a dinner party one night, an inebriated Churchill asked an attractive woman whether she would sleep with him for a million pounds.
“Maybe,” the woman said coyly.
“Would you sleep with me for one pound?” Churchill then asked.
“Of course not, what kind of woman do you think I am?” the woman responded indignantly.
“Madam, we’ve already established what kind of woman you are,” said Churchill, “now we’re just negotiating the price.”
The most highly publicized attack was carried out in late 1999 by a woman named Khourn Sophal, the wife of Svay Sittha, under secretary of state at the Council of Ministers.Other cases of wives attacking mistresses with acid are in the story above. So it seems the acid-throwing meme extends beyond the jilted paramour. Beauty is the only asset these women have and I suppose it seems more cruel than death to strip them of it. Do most of the perpretrators come from high-caste groups and the victims come from low castes?
The victim, an 18-year-old actress and singer named Tat Marina, was horribly disfigured when the woman and several bodyguards poured about five quarts of acid over her.
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posted by delmoi at 11:30 AM on December 29, 2008