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Woman Blinded by Spurned Man Invokes Islamic Retribution
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In 2002, Bahrami was a 24-year-old electronics student at a university in Tehran. She and her friends felt sorry for a sometimes bedraggled younger student named Majid Movahedi, so they collected sweaters and pants and asked a university staff member to pass them on to him.
"Ameneh was always nice to everybody," said her mother, Shahin, carefully lifting a cup of tea to her daughter's lips.
Bahrami left a deep impression on Movahedi, even though the two had never spoken.
"He was absolutely crazy about her," said Aziz Movahedi, Majid's father. "At periods he would lock himself in his room, saying he only wanted to marry her."
Bahrami didn't share his feelings. "I remember him as a strange boy with an obsessive stare," she said. In 2003, Movahedi's mother called Bahrami's parents to propose a marriage. "I politely declined," Bahrami said.
Movahedi, refusing to be turned down, began waiting outside her workplace and stopping her in the street, crying that he would kill himself if she didn't marry him.
Police said they could not act before a crime had been committed, so Bahrami decided that she needed to act. "Things were out of control. I was facing an unbalanced person," Bahrami said.
On Oct. 31, 2004, she approached Movahedi as he waited near her office. "I made up a story that I had gotten engaged and was about to marry. 'Continue with your life,' I told him. 'There is absolutely no hope for us.' "
As she returned to her office, he vowed to kill her.
Three days later, on a cold, clear autumn afternoon, Bahrami was walking home through one of Tehran's busy city parks when someone tapped her on the shoulder. As she turned around, a burning fluid splashed onto her face.
"It felt like my head was stuck in a bowl of boiling water," Bahrami said. "I bent forward to allow the stuff to drip off my face, but the pain was intolerable. I fell on the pavement, screaming for help."
In the interview, Bahrami recounted these events calmly. Her mother, sitting next to her on a couch, held her daughter tightly.
