Adeel
Founder
MADRID (AFP) An Iranian woman living in Spain who was disfigured and blinded by a man in Iran said Thursday she welcomed a Tehran court ruling that awards her eye-for-eye justice against her assailant.
"The person who did this deserves to go through the same suffering. Only this way will he understand my pain," Ameneh Bahrami told daily newspaper ABC.
"My intention is to ask for the application of the law not just for revenge but also so that no other woman will have to go through this. It is to set an example," the 30-year-old added.
In November an Iranian court ruled that the man -- identified only as Majid -- who admitted blinding Bahrami in 2004 by throwing acid in her face because she rejected his marriage request should also be blinded with acid based on the Islamic law system of "eye-for-an-eye" retribution.
Iran's supreme court confirmed the sentence at the beginning of February.
Bahrami, who moved to Barcelona after the attack to get medical treatment, said the court had originally ruled that she was entitled to have the man blinded in only one eye in Iran because "each man is worth two women".
"But I explained to the judge that with one eye one can still live," she told top-selling newspaper El Pais in another interview.
The court then ruled that the man would be blinded in both eyes if in exchange Bahrami agreed to give up the 20,000 euros (25,000 dollars) which she was set to receive from her assailant's family.
"He will be anesthetized and will not suffer pain. His face will not be disfigured because only a few drops (of acid) will be needed, he will not have the internal injuries which I had," she told ABC when asked if she felt she was less cruel than her aggressor.
"He did not have any compassion when he waited for me for hours outside of my workplace and threw the acid on me," she added.
Bahrami recovered 40 percent vision in her right eye but in 2007 she suffered an infection and became totally blind again.
She says she survives on a rent subsidy of 400 euros per month which she receives from the Spanish government and charity from friends.
source