An Iranian woman who was blinded in an acid attack is choosing to exercise her right to demand her assailant suffer the same way she has, and the courts agree. In what is called an “eye for an eye” punishment (totally cool under Islamic law, says CNN) her attacker, Majid Movahedi, will be blinded in both eyes using sulphuric acid.
Late last year, an Iranian court gave Bahrami what she asked for. It sentenced Movahedi to be blinded with drops of acid in each eye. This month, the courts rejected Movahedi’s appeal.
Bahrami’s lawyer, Sarrafi, said the sentencing might be carried out in a matter of weeks. He said he doesn’t think Bahrami will change her mind. Neither does Bahrami.
“If I don’t do this and there is another acid attack, I will never forgive myself for as long as I live,” she said.
My first thought, when I saw this on CNN this afternoon, was “holy fuck!” It was also my second, third and fourth thoughts. Bahrami came off as a very sympathetic character in the news segment, which I can imagine is hard to do when you’re demanding a man be blinded by acid. Of course, it’s easy to feel bad for a woman whose face looks like it’s still melting off. Movahedi fucked her up, and doesn’t appear to know that maybe he crossed a line:
He told the court he still loved Ms. Bahrami, but 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, according to a report in The Washington Post.
“The newspapers have made this a huge case, but I haven’t done anything bad.”
I’m not sure what part of Islamic law lets a criminal who was blinded by sulphuric acid for throwing a whole hell of a lot more acid in a woman’s face allows him to go back and take the rest of her eyes, so let’s assume Movahedi is fucking psycho. (Seriously, because of him we live in a world where a woman can ask for acid to be dripped in a guy’s face and still be taking the high road: “Asked by the judge if she wanted Mohavedi’s face to be splashed with acid, she replied, ‘That is impossible and horrific. Just drip 20 drops of acid in his eyes so he can realize what pain I am undergoing.’ “)
So on the one hand, the part of me that is against cruel and unusual punishment has an automatic gag reflex about this particular punishment. On the other hand, I live in a place where even the creepiest stalkers rarely resort to acid attacks when you decline to marry them, and unfortunately there are many women in other parts of the world who can’t say the same. And the same book that’s used to justify the laws and culture that allow honor killings and acid attacks explicitly gives Bahrami this option, so another part of me wants to say these guys made their bed and can fucking sleep in it. I guess I can’t decide what wins here – the revulsion against an exotic punishment meted out in an area of the world famous for harsh punishments versus the feeling that nothing short of making a few dramatic examples out of men like Movahedi would convince men to think twice before disfiguring women for pissing them off. I don’t like that idea one bit, but I just can’t bring myself to condemn Bahrami. I really don’t know.
My thought processes followed you through about the same thing (including the holy fuck). Then, I took a step back from and realized something: this isn’t about Bahrami anymore.
What was done to her was horrific. What she feels the need to do is up to her; I’m not going to be the one to tell her to forgive him. And he needs to be punished.
But we don’t ask the victims of a crime how to punish someone in criminal matters, and that is for the very good reason of separating justice from revenge. Expecting a victim to rise above their own hurt is a Herculean task that we should not ask of them. Justice is about us as a society. And this is not justice. We shouldn’t kill murderers, we shouldn’t rape rapists, and we shouldn’t beat those who assault. So we shouldn’t put acid in this man’s eyes, nor condone it, because it hurts us as people. (I’m using “we” sort of a general short-hand for humanity).
As was famously said, “An eye for and eye, and a tooth for a tooth leaves us all blind with no teeth”.
What a sad and interesting story, and a fascinating twist to the usual acid attack story line. Acid attacks are so repulsive. Thanks for writing on it. I’m happy that this is getting a little bit of international notice, it’s very thought provoking.
Well put, Antigone. There’s no need to condemn Bahrami in order to see through the temporary temptations of revenge. Though to take your logic to the extreme– “We shouldn’t kill murderers, we shouldn’t rape rapists, and we shouldn’t beat those who assault” — neither should we lock up murderers, rapists, and so forth for purely punitive reasons. Which is, of course, what America’s current justice system more or less only does. And I don’t think we should, by the way. Punitive punishment is simply a watered down version of an eye for an eye. I am not against society locking up people if it is really trying for some system of rehabilitation– but rehabilitative penal philosophy has been dead and buried here for decades. The exceptions prove the rule. Quakers shmakers! We lock people up in conditions which we know are violent and inhuman, and it’s accepted with approval by almost everyone that the length of stay in these brutish rape pits should determined by the severity of the crime. This just “an eye for an eye” in a form that has been normalized as acceptable to society’s tender dispositions.
I seem to have drifted a bit from the topic at hand. Well anyway, Kyso, the reptile part of my brain is with you. Fuck Mohavedi. But…
“Punitive punishment is simply a watered down version of an eye for an eye. I am not against society locking up people if it is really trying for some system of rehabilitation– but rehabilitative penal philosophy has been dead and buried here for decades.”
Unfortunately we’re very similar here in the UK. Our Victorian prison reformers are, no doubt, spinning in their graves.
We massively overcrowd our prisons, are locking ever-younger ‘offenders’ up and providing less and less constructive work for them (‘inside’ or out).
The vast balance of convicted criminals (something like 70 – 75% from the last figures I saw) have drug habits and the resources are just not there to treat them.
They’re (the UK Government) now talking about stopping the benefits of prisoners released on bail if they can’t pass a drugs test and/or are not enrolled in a drug treatment plan. Fine sounding theory until you remember that there aren’t enough funds to treat those volunteering for treatment now. So what you’ll get is funds-starved ex-crim’s with a drug habit that isn’t being treated.
It doesn’t take an Einstein to work out what those ex-crim’s will do to ‘make’ the money up.
They’ll then be locked up for a longer period (for breaking their parole plus whatever other offences they’ve been caught doing), further brutalising them and adding yet more pressure on the prison population and prison funding (which means less likelihood of their getting treatment inside, or of being successfully rehabilitated).
It’s a nice little self-fulfilling prophecy, all generated by someone needing a soundbite for TV and wanting to look “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.”
There’s no need to condemn Bahrami in order to see through the temporary temptations of revenge.
But Bahrami makes a reasonable case that her insistence on this punishment isn’t driven by revenge, although it’s obviously impossible to really tell. For starters, she went for the acid-blinding lite option when she could have had him messed up as badly as he messed her up. Secondly, her fear that if she doesn’t chose this option, he’ll do it to someone else seems justified in light of his remorselessness and the insane statements he made at the trial.
Actually, you’re too right. I was wrongly equating “eye for an eye” with “revenge”, and they aren’t necessarily the same thing, are they?
I mean, I still don’t agree with either as a means by which to run a society, but that was certainly a bit of clumsy thinking on my part.
Though the line “Just drip 20 drops of acid in his eyes so he can realize what pain I am undergoing” does certainly suggest that revenge is at least part of her motivation. One could argue that, perhaps, revenge isn’t always evil, that for instance in this case Bahrami just wants to give Mohavedi the means to have some empathy for the kinds of conditions he has caused. But even in this (morally dubious) scenario, it would still be a kind of revenge.
Just because something isn’t driven by revenge doesn’t mean revenge isn’t there as a perk. I just get the feeling that if this happened in the States, she’d be OK with him spending the rest of his life in prison; I’m not sure how much of a viable option that is in her case.