An Eye For An Eye. Court Allows Woman to Drop Acid into Her Attacker's Eyes

Hammurabi was the sixth king of ancient Babylon ruling from 1792 BC to 1750 BC.  (Make a mental note of that information in case you are ever on Jeopardy or you like to bring up random facts at cocktail parties.)  Perhaps best known for the Code of Hammurabi, the King's reign produced 282 laws with scaled punishments including whether it is appropriate to wear white after labor day and how many days you should wait to call someone after picking them up in a bar.  Perhaps the most famous of his laws was the infamous "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."  This law of retaliation or "lex talionis" still remains with us today.  One can argue that the killing of Osama Bin Laden is an example.  Applying Sharia law, we can still see "an eye for an eye" doled out in modern Day Iran.  



The NY Post reports that 30 year old Ameneh Bahrami may get the chance to get revenge on the attacker that caused her blindness.  Apparently, Ameneh was the object of affection of 27 year old Majod Movahedi.  Majod was smitten with the electronics major.   They attended school together in 2002.  He proposed marriage to her repeatedly.  In 2004, after Ameneh turned him down, the heart broken man threw a bucket of chemicals in her face.  The poor woman underwent 17 surgeries.  She was badly scarred and lost her sight.  She was awarded the equivalent of $30,000.00


Ameneh asked the court for the opportunity to return the favor.  After his conviction, Majod was scheduled this past Saturday to be rendered unconscious in a Tehran hospital.  Ameneh would then be allowed to drop five drops of acid into each of his eyes. According to the NY Post, the procedure was postponed after several groups, including Amnesty International objected to the retribution.  In the words of Gandhi "An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind".