CrimeIranian court orders man's eyes to be gouged, and nose and one ear cut off

An Iranian court sentenced a main who poured acid on a young girl’s face to having his eyes gouged out and his right ear and nose cut off.

An opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said the man was convicted last October of intentionally attacking the girl with acid, causing her to lose her eyesight and right ear.

The state-run Mehr news agency reported last month that another Iranian man was condemned to have one hand and one foot cut off as punishment for an unspecified crime,.

Haaretz reports that the national council said that Iran’s high court has publicly defended cutting off body parts and removing eyes as part of the country’s judicial system.

The UN said last month that at least eighty people, and perhaps as many as ninety-five, have been executed in Iran since the beginning of 2014, a surge in the already high use of the death penalty. The UN said the rate of execution, and the crimes for which people are condemn to death, diminishes hopes for human rights reforms under President Hassan Rohani.

“There were some encouraging signs last year where political prisoners were released … But it appears at least in the past seven weeks that in fact executions have been scaled up,” UN human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a news briefing.

“We regret that the new government has not changed its approach to the death penalty and continues to impose capital punishment for a wide range of offences. We urge the government to immediately halt executions and to institute a moratorium.”

In 2013 Iran executed between 500 and 625 people, including at least twenty-eight women and two juveniles, Shamdasani said.