Iran Sentences Three To Be Blinded In ‘Eye-For-An-Eye’ Move

Iran has sentenced three people, including a woman, to be blinded in one eye in ‘eye-for-an-eye’ punishment under the Islamic Republic’s retribution laws. 

The Tehran municipality’s Hamshahri newspaper said on Tuesday that the three have been transferred to the Tehran prosecutor’s office to prepare for the sentences to be carried out.

The woman had hurled acid at another woman in a 2011 dispute, causing her to lose an eye the paper said, adding that the supreme court has upheld the sentence of having her right eye gouged out, in addition to a jail term and a fine.

One of the men has been handed down the same sentence for causing his victim to lose an eye in a knife assault in 2017. 

In the other case, dating back to 2018, a man has been convicted for blinding a friend in the left eye with a hunting weapon. According to the paper the plaintiff has “insisted” that his assailant suffer the same fate.

The Islamic Republic applies the eye-for-an-eye law, called ‘qisas’ according to Quranic principles, at the request of victims or their families, unless they grant a pardon. Amnesty International and other rights groups condemn such punishment in Iran as cruel and tantamount to torture.

Many people are executed in Iran every month because of this law. Late in July, two human rights organizations said Iran has embarked on an execution spree at a “horrifying pace” with at least 251 cases between January 1 and June 30, 2022.