The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has reported that the Iranian regime is planning to blind a man next week. This news, received from inside Iran, indicates that the punishment under the mullahs’ brutal retribution law will blind Mojtaba Saheli (Sabeqi), 31, in his right eye. The regime has already blinded him in his left eye.
He has been informed by prison officials in Gohardasht (Rajai-Shahr) Prison in Karaj, north-west of Tehran, that he will be blinded in his other eye next week.
Mr. Saheli allegedly blinded a driver in Qom, south of Tehran, with acid on 3rd August 2009. He was sentenced by the regime’s court in Qom to be “blinded in both eyes with acid, pay blood money and serve a 10-year prison term as part of the regime’s inhumane law of retribution (qisas)”.
The draconian sentence was upheld by the regime’s Supreme Court and on 3rd March 2015 Mr. Saheli was blinded in one eye with acid. This happened in Gohardasht Prison in the presence of the regime’s deputy prosecutor in Tehran, Mohammad Shahriari, and other prison officials.
The chairman of the Judicial Committee of the NCRI, Dr. Sanabargh Zahedi, said that qisas, the inhumane law of retribution, has been used for the past 37 years. This type of medieval punishment shows the regime’s “reactionary nature”. These punishments are not only humane, but they are “clear violations of all principles and norms of a modern judiciary, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and all civil and political covenants”, he said. “Such punishments undoubtedly constitute a savage form of torture and should be condemned by any freedom-seeking person. The Iranian Resistance and NCRI members have since 1980 condemned the regime’s qisas law as anti-human.”
Dr. Zahedi added that according to the logic of modern democratic Islam and the Quran, the first principle is dynamism. Therefore, Islamic penal provision must be interpreted within the context of social and economic conditions and scientific progress – something which the mullahs’ regime is far away from. He said that “it is clear that there is no possibility of reform within this regime”.
On 5th March 2015, Amnesty International released a statement condemning the Iranian regime for blinding Mr. Saheli in his left eye. They said that this type of punishment is “unspeakably cruel” and a “shocking act”.
Raha Bahreini, Amnesty International’s Iran Researcher, said that the punishment exemplifies the brutality of Iran’s justice system and proves their complete disregard for basic humanity. Bahreini added that the cruel and inhuman punishments the regime carries out are not forms of justice – they are forms of corporal punishment that are prohibited by international law and are under no circumstances ever justifiable.
