h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"In December, an Iranian court ruled that a man was to lose an eye and an ear after he blinded another man and burnt his ear in an acid attack.

The month before, the Iranian Supreme Court upheld a ruling that ordered a man undergo the same "eye for an eye" punishment, after he blinded his lover's husband by throwing acid in his face.

Neither sentence is known to have been carried out.

In Saudi Arabia in August, a man was sentenced to have his spinal cord severed after he paralysed another man by attacking him with a cleaver.

But doctors charged with carrying out the medical procedure refused to operate on the man, saying "inflicting such harm is not possible".

The last known case where the "an eye for an eye" punishment was carried out was 11 years ago in Saudi Arabia, when an Egyptian had an eye surgically removed for disfiguring another man in an acid attack, the Daily Mail reported.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/eye-for-an-eye-acid-punishment-postponed-after-outcry-20110516-1ep5l.html#ixzz1MVDMt9Iu

I've been watching the C4series about Katie Piper who was the victim of an acid attack by a guy she'd been seeing for 2 weeks. 3 years on she has set up a brilliant charity to help people who have been disfigured through fire, attacks or I think anyone with a facial disfigurement. I think it's absolutely fantastic what she's doing and hats off to C4 for making these programmes.

Anyway to get to the point that's relevant here. The guy is in prison..I'm not sure of the length of sentence, he repeatedly makes appeals that keep getting turned down, thank goodness, but it feels so good to me to live in a society where such people are put in prison as the mark of a civilised state. I can't emphasise enough how good that makes me feel, and proud.

And hopefully through the work of people like Katie Piper and others, society will become a much friendlier place for people suffering this kind of thing.

>>It does make you wonder as this case has been going on for a couple of years yet only now has it come to the attention of the media here.<<

Sadly, tales of people disappearing into the Iranian prison system for months without publicity is not uncommon. Initial sentences are often given by a different judge than the one who authorises the carrying out of the sentence. This leads to delays of several months, even years between sentencing and implementation while the case is re-examined. Meanwhile the accused is kept in prison, until the second judgement authorises the sentence to be carried out, even if their initial sentence was a light punishment (in this case, I believe the first judgement was delivered in 2008).

Prisons in Iran are hideous things. This link describes the conditions in one of them: http://tinyurl.com/6592pzy
It was written in April so it's quite up to date.
Because of the drug problem, HIV and Hepatitis are said to be endemic and the authorities leave the prisoners untreated.

Dominic Lawson's take on it:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-an-eye-for-an-eye-is-proper-justice-2285055.html

The key line from Lawson's article is near the end: "what if "an eye for an eye" acts as a discouragement to the sort of assault that Majid Movahedi inflicted on Ameena Bahrami?"

To which the answer is surely - what is the evidence that it does act as discouragement? What is the evidence for the deterrent effect of any judicial punishment? We know those backward, barbarian nations that still execute murderers have more murderers per head than the civilised nations do. And yet the executions continue. So what's your evidence?

Because if you shuffle your feet and look at your shoes and admit the truth - that there is no such evidence - the question comes back at you twice as hard. What if you sanction "an eye for an eye" and it DOESN'T have the effect you want? Haven't you sunk even lower than the scum you're trying to punish, by doing these appalling acts not in a fit of jealousy or rage or mental inadequacy, but in cold blood as an agent of the state?

Deterrence is a weaseling red herring here. This is about revenge, and nothing else.

In that article he writes,

'...Yet I can't say that I am greatly relieved; my empathy remains wholly with Ameneh Bahrami, who not only lives with a dreadful unappeased pain, but who is unable, because of her blindness, to work as the engineer she qualified to be...'

Why on earth is he conflating 'not being relieved' with, 'my empathy with..'

I'm totally relieved that such a barbaric act of retribution hasn't been done, but my 'empathy' dunno if that's the right word, maybe more like 'sympathy' is totally with her. And no doubt she is being manipulated now by others in various ways. You'd think after her face had been so severely manipulated, she'd be accorded some respect as an individual human being.

I'm against the death sentence. But I wouldn't have a massive problem with that being carried out in a humane way by the state of Iran...if it was part of their Law. The US still does it regularly in quite a few states. And we call their leader the 'Leader of the Free World'.

I don't quite understand his claim about her 'pain', given modern pharmaceuticals.

Yes it's utterly unthinkably horrific what he did. If I was put in the same room as him..I'd probably do unspeakable things to him if I could.

But real justice can't work that way IMO, *because* of what we as individuals would love to do to such a criminal.

"we call their leader the 'Leader of the Free World'"

Speak for yourself.

Anyone who supports the blinding of the perp has no moral basis for condemning what he did.

>>Anyone who supports the blinding of the perp has no moral basis for condemning what he did.<<

America executes children and the mentally incapable. It gaols nearly 1% of its population: I think the boat has long sailed on America being able to talk about the humane treatment of criminals

It also uses its prisoners as cheap labour to give the country an unfair edge in global trade.