DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Henny on December 15, 2008, 10:12:39 AM
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That's a harsh sentence! But I have to say, despite the brutality of it, at least they're taking a crime against a woman seriously. And then the jerk had the nerve to say he's still marry her and consider it compensation for his crime? Ugh.
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- An Iranian woman, blinded by a jilted stalker who threw acid in her face, has persuaded a court to sentence him to be blinded with acid himself under Islamic law demanding an eye for an eye.
Ameneh Bahrami refused to accept "blood money." She insisted instead that her attacker suffer a fate similar to her own "so people like him would realize they do not have the right to throw acid in girls' faces," she told the Tehran Provincial Court.
Her attacker, a 27-year-old man identified in court papers as Majid, admitted throwing acid in her face in November 2004, blinding and disfiguring her. He said he loved her and insisted she loved him as well.
He has until early this week to appeal the sentence.
Doctors say there is no chance Bahrami will recover her vision, despite repeated operations, including medical care in Spain partially paid for by Iran's reformist former president, Mohammed Khatami, who was in power when the attack took place.
Majid said he was still willing to marry Bahrami, but she ruled out the possibility and urged that he remain locked up.
"I am not willing to get blood money from the defendant, who is still thinking about destroying me and wants to take my eyes out," she told the court. "How could he pretend to be in love? If they let this guy go free, he will definitely kill me."
Bahrami told the court that Majid's mother had repeatedly tried to arrange a marriage between the two after Majid met Bahrami at university.
She rejected the offer, not even sure at first who the suitor was. Her friends told her he was a man who had once harassed her in class, leading to an argument between them.
But he refused to accept her rejection, she said, going to her workplace and threatening her.
Finally, she lied and told him she had married someone else and that "it would be better all around if he would leave [her] alone."
She told the court that she reported the conversation to police, saying he had threatened her with "burning for the rest of my life" -- but they said they could not act until a crime had been committed.
Two days later, on November 2, 2004, as she was walking home from work, she became aware of a man following her. She slowed, then stopped to let him pass.
"When the person came close, I realized that it was Majid," she said. "Everything happened in a second. He was holding a red container in his hand. He looked into my eyes for a second and threw the contents of the red container into my face."
Bahrami knew exactly what was happening, she said.
"At that moment, I saw in my mind the face of two sisters who years ago had the same thing happen to them. I thought, 'Oh, my God -- acid.' "
Passers-by tried to wash the acid off Bahrami, then took her to Labafinejad Hospital.
"They did everything possible for me," she said of the doctors and nurses there.
Then, one day, they asked her to sign papers allowing them to operate on her.
"I said, 'Do you want to take my eyes out?' The doctor cried and left."
They did want to remove her eyes surgically, she learned, for fear they would become infected, potentially leading to a fatal infection of her brain.
But she refused to allow it, both because she was not sure she could handle it psychologically, and because she thought her death would be easier for her family to bear.
"If I had died, my family would probably be sad for a year and mourn my death, and then they would get used to it," she told the court. "But now every day they look at me and see that I am slowly wasting away."
The three-judge panel ruled unanimously on November 26 that Majid should be blinded with acid and forced to pay compensation for the injuries to Bahrami's face, hands and body caused by the acid.
That was what she had demanded earlier in the trial. But she did not ask for his face to be disfigured, as hers was.
"Of course, only blind him and take his eyes, because I cannot behave the way he did and ask for acid to be thrown in his face," she said. "Because that would be [a] savage, barbaric act. Only take away his sight so that his eyes will become like mine. I am not saying this from a selfish motive. This is what society demands."
Attacking women and girls by throwing acid in their faces is sufficiently common in countries such as Bangladesh and Cambodia that groups have been formed to fight it. Human rights organizations have condemned the practice in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is not clear how often such attacks take place in Iran.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are the only countries that consider eye-gouging to be a legitimate judicial punishment, Human Rights Watch has said.
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This is the kind of thing that really excites the likes of xtian4lg. They would love to do this here. I can just see them puncturing the rear skull of an abortion doctor with glee.
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I see this differently
acid blinding as a way to marry her
it`s a calculated risk and he lost
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Are you presenting this as a good thing? Is it supposed to disprove the barbaric nature of Sharia law?
the man should be punished, of course, but I don't see the punishment as being much different than the crime. Maybe it's better than our system. Perhaps it would be a better deterrent, but of course i wouldn't support such a thing here.
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Are you presenting this as a good thing? Is it supposed to disprove the barbaric nature of Sharia law?
the man should be punished, of course, but I don't see the punishment as being much different than the crime. Maybe it's better than our system. Perhaps it would be a better deterrent, but of course i wouldn't support such a thing here.
No, it's not a good thing for certain. I did, however, have a major surge of feminism when reading that he would still be willing to marry her (what a guy!). And the main point I wanted to make is that regardless of the form of punishment, I'm glad that a horrific crime against a woman is being taken seriously in Iran.
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The crime the guy was barbaric. But the Iranian government by repeating it, is also barbaric. Justice is about treating people fairly, it isn't about finding a rhyme for every crime.
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Barbaric or not, the sentence is appropriate and the guy deserves it. He'd deserve it more if the victim insisted on also disfiguring him as she was disfigured. Some kind of misguided charitable impulse led her to ask the court to go easier on him than he was on her, but the judges should not have indulged her.
People get away with all kinds of shit because there is no meaningful payback. I tried to think of one good reason why this guy should not suffer the same fate as the girl he disfigured and blinded and you know what? There isn't one. After he's blinded and disfigured, he should spend the rest of his miserable life at hard labour in the worst prison in Iran.
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again I`m of a different thought
if the girl agreed to marry him (I hope that`s not remotely possible) it would start a new dating trend if your intended wrongly don`t marry you.
you got the acid option to fix it.
I sound like I`m kidding ,but look at the facts .
it looks like he might of thought the acid would help his cause to get her to marry him.
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Match up what the guy said, what he thought or claims to have thought and what he did. Which do you think he should be punished for?
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>>And the main point I wanted to make is that regardless of the form of punishment, I'm glad that a horrific crime against a woman is being taken seriously in Iran.<<
That's what i figured, I just wanted to be sure.
Is Iran stictly under Sharia law? I see the article says under Islamic law. I'm guessing they're the same thing.
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I think not all of islam practice sharia
might be wrong
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The story goes that when asked about the harshness of his punishments, Draco said the death penalty was appropriate for stealing even so much as a cabbage. If there had been a worse penalty than death, Draco would gladly have applied it to greater crimes.
As a result of Draco's strict, unforgiving code, the adjective based on the name Draco -- draconian -- refers to penalties considered excessively severe.
"And Draco himself, they say, being asked why he made death the penalty for most offences, replied that in his opinion the lesser ones deserved it, and for the greater ones no heavier penalty could be found."
http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/greecehellas1/a/cylonanddraco_3.htm (http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/greecehellas1/a/cylonanddraco_3.htm)
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Iran is a shiite state, not a sunni one. Sharia law is a sunni thing.
The laws practiced in Iran are a Shiite interpretation of Shia Islamic law.
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<<The story goes that when asked about the harshness of his punishments, Draco said the death penalty was appropriate for stealing even so much as a cabbage. If there had been a worse penalty than death, Draco would gladly have applied it to greater crimes.>>
Somehow I get the feeling that stealing a cabbage is on a whole different level of criminality than throwing acid into a girl's face, blinding and disfiguring her. But I guess for a die-hard cabbage lover . . .
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>>And the main point I wanted to make is that regardless of the form of punishment, I'm glad that a horrific crime against a woman is being taken seriously in Iran.<<
That's what i figured, I just wanted to be sure.
Is Iran stictly under Sharia law? I see the article says under Islamic law. I'm guessing they're the same thing.
Yes, they definitely are - most Islamic countries in the Middle East are to at least some extent. But different Muslim groups interpret differently, and Iran is really extreme in literal interpretations, much like Saudi Arabia.
Other countries do things a bit differently. In Jordan, for example, Sharia law is only used for family and domestic matters. (And only for Muslims; Christians are bound by Ecclesiastical Law and have their own special courts, however if there is a family issue between a Muslim and a Christian, Sharia Law trumps.) Civil law for everything else, including criminal offenses.
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Iran is a shiite state, not a sunni one. Sharia law is a sunni thing.
The laws practiced in Iran are a Shiite interpretation of Shia Islamic law.
Untrue. Sharia Law is a Muslim thing. There are five schools of thought in Islam, Shia is one of them. Each school has a different scholarly interpretation of Sharia Law, but the foundation is based on Qur'an and Hadith.
The interpretations of Iran and Saudi Arabi are the most extreme, and include all "Hadd" offenses; these are a set of specific crimes that have specific penalties (adultery, theft, drinking, rape, murder). Then, to top it off, they add the "eye for an eye" interpretation which is how this woman won her case.
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<<The story goes that when asked about the harshness of his punishments, Draco said the death penalty was appropriate for stealing even so much as a cabbage. If there had been a worse penalty than death, Draco would gladly have applied it to greater crimes.>>
Somehow I get the feeling that stealing a cabbage is on a whole different level of criminality than throwing acid into a girl's face, blinding and disfiguring her. But I guess for a die-hard cabbage lover . . .
The value of "an eye for an eye" is that no more than an eye should be taken for an eye, this is not the only way to think of justice.
Draco was putting the need of his society for good citicens far above the need of citicens for good society, rulebreakers getting gone one way or another smooths the society. What Draco was fighting was a code of vendetta in which most familys were takeing their own justice and didn't have to settle for any halfway measures.
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"An eye for an eye" is another example of Biblical crap that continues to infect and fester in our times.
The Bible is chock full of this petty and mean inhumanity. The Koran is no better, just harder to get through.
Iranians do upon occasion, reinterpret the penalties of Sharia law. Saudis don't. I don't think that in Iran thieves have their hands amputated, for example.
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Iranians do upon occasion, reinterpret the penalties of Sharia law. Saudis don't. I don't think that in Iran thieves have their hands amputated, for example.
I'm not sure on this point. But I would guess that with 5 official interpretations, there are probably a lot of unofficial interpretations going on behind the scenes as well.
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<<"An eye for an eye" is another example of Biblical crap that continues to infect and fester in our times.
<<The Bible is chock full of this petty and mean inhumanity. The Koran is no better, just harder to get through.>>
It's a little more nuanced than that. "An eye for an eye" might be petty and mean if it's applied literally to cases of accidental injury or bar brawls, but there's nothing "petty" about the injury the girl sustained, and the manner in which it was inflicted was barbaric and outrageous. It demeans the girl's injury, her dignity and her honour when any retaliation, no matter how harsh, is called "petty and mean." This was a horrific crime and it deserves an equally horrific response. 15 years in the Iranian equivalent of the Macon County Jail wouldn't begin to do justice. In Western society, the only appropriate penalty would be death. In Iranian society, hopefully, it will be what the judges decreed.
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I'm also glad to see that crime against women is being taken seriously.
This man wanted her to be unacceptable to anyone but him. Now, he will be unacceptable in marriage to anyone. I think that part is very just.
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"An eye for an eye" is another example of Biblical crap that continues to infect and fester in our times.
The Bible is chock full of this petty and mean inhumanity. The Koran is no better, just harder to get through.
Iranians do upon occasion, reinterpret the penalties of Sharia law. Saudis don't. I don't think that in Iran thieves have their hands amputated, for example.
I disagree very much.
That punishments should fit the crimes and be no worse than the crimes seems like a good principal .
That this guy isn't guillty isn't even being argued , that his intent was to cause exactly the harm he has caused isn't being argued either .
So with his malice and his action being what they were , and his success at causeing harm being what it is , how is Justice served by anything less ?
In the US we are forbidden to maim even a maimer, so we have to settle for locking someone up for a period of time equivelent to the suffering of the victim. This is better in some respects, but I can imagine this woman and her family being happy in this case that US law isn't being used.