(TEHRAN, Iran) — An Iranian woman blinded and disfigured by a man who threw acid into her face stood above her attacker Sunday in a hospital operating room as a doctor was about to put several drops of acid in one of his eyes in court-ordered retribution. The man waited on his knees and wept. "What do you want to do now?" the doctor asked the 34-year-old woman, whose own face was severely disfigured in the 2004 attack. "I forgave him, I forgave him," she responded, asking the doctor to spare him at the last minute in a dramatic scene broadcast on Iran's state television.
Ameneh Bahrami lost her sight and suffered horrific burns to her face, scalp and body in the attack, carried out by a man who was angered that she refused his marriage proposal. "It is best to pardon when you are in a position of power," Bahrami said in explaining her decision Sunday to spare him. The sobbing man, Majid Movahedi, said Bahrami was "very generous." It was a change of heart from around the time when the court handed down the sentence in November 2008. A few months later, Bahrami told a radio station in Spain, where she traveled for medical treatment after the attack, that she was happy with the ruling. "I am not doing this out of revenge, but rather so that the suffering I went through is not repeated," she said in that March 2009 interview.
The court ruling had allowed Bahrami to have a doctor pour a few drops of the corrosive chemical in one of Movahedi's eyes as retribution based on the Islamic law system of "qisas," or eye-for-an-eye retribution. Though she was blinded in both eyes, she said in the radio interview that the court ruled she was entitled to blind him in only one eye. After undergoing treatment in Barcelona, Bahrami initially recovered 40 percent of the vision in one eye, but she later lost all her sight.
Praises to Allah for the whole event. I am not posting the story to highlight the fate of the attacker or the generousity and good heart of Bahrami. But, i want to share how true the QISAS law is. If you read the article further, Amnesty International criticized the law and calling it cruel punishment. Hey..to me this is not cruel. This is justice. You can only understand someone's feelings and pain if only you experience the same thing that he/she endured. What Allah want by ordering the Qisas law is for us to avoid hurting others by making us understand their pain.
Yes, i, pity the attacker and can easily call this cruel. I am also fully aware of the history and principles of Amnesty in their fights for human right. But, try for a seconds to be in the victim's shoes. Imagine the pain and the life ahead. Can you?. From a spectator's view, we can easily say the punishment cruel. But it is not about us. Its about Bahrami. Its her who feel the pain and having to live the rest of her life with the wounds physically and mentally. Don't you think the most satisfying punishment is "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!" (of course, this must be done according to Qisas Law).
I think for Bahrami, even a lifetime prison sentenced to the attacker wouldn't heal her pain. But she knows that forgiveness is the best solution. Only Allah The Almighty can rewards her for her forgiveness.
Love~~ Nid (^____^)
