Islamic Justice

March 6 2009 Tehran, Iran. An Iranian woman living in Spain said Wednesday she welcomed a Tehran court ruling that awards her eye-for-an-eye justice against a suitor who blinded her with acid.

Ameneh Bahrami, 30, told Cadena SER radio, "I am not doing this out of revenge, but rather so that the suffering I went through is not repeated."

Late last year an Iranian court ruled that the man — identified only as Majid — who blinded Bahrami in 2004 after she spurned him, should also be blinded with acid based on the Islamic law system of "qisas," or eye for an eye retribution, according to Iranian newspaper reports from November.

But Bahrami, who moved to Spain after the attack to get medical treatment, said Wednesday that under Iranian law, she is entitled to blind him in only one eye, unless she pays euro20,000 ($25,110), because in Iran women are not considered equal to men.

"They have told us that my two eyes are equal to one of his because in my country each man is worth two women. They are not the same," she told Cadena SER.

Bahrami explained that she was now waiting for a letter from the court to go back to Iran for the punishment to be carried out.

Cadenda SER said that after undergoing treatment in Barcelona, Bahrami recovered 40 percent vision in one eye but since then doctors have not been able to prevent her from going totally blind. She also suffered horrific burns to her face, scalp and body.

She says she now survives on euro400 ($500) a month in aid from the Spanish government.

The woman said Majid would be blinded by having several drops of acid put into one eye, whereas she had acid splashed all over her face and other parts of her body.

It was not immediately possible to make contact with Bahrami on Wednesday. No one at the Iranian Embassy was available for comment either.

The phrase "an eye for an eye" is very stringently adhered to in Iran's Islamic law