Iranian mother who spared her son's killer: 'Vengeance has left my heart'

[MADem]

3. It's sharia law. Justice is very personalized. This is common elsewhere as well.

This is why, in places where it is practiced, you can find murderers who have walked free because they are wealthy, and they buy off the family of the victim.

There's certainly a pragmatic aspect when you see stuff like that happen--the victim's family needs the money the victim would have provided, so they take blood money in exchange. Often the death of a victim will lift a family out of poverty, so it's a mixed bag of emotions for those left behind. They have to make the trade of money for the life and freedom of the murderer. The perpetrator is out only money; if there's any jailing to be done (in some places they'll do a little token jailing) and the criminal is wealthy, it's a very soft incarceration.

In this case, though, the mother simply had a moment of clarity--it's a very pure story which makes it very compelling to me. It says a lot about how that mother was raised, what kind of family she had and how she raised her children (and talk about sad--to lose TWO sons in a culture where the lads are prized). I find it amusing that the decision fell to the mother (amusing in an odd way--probably not the best word as women's status as a 2nd class citizen is enshrined in the fact that the only reason the woman had the "live or die" decision is because her HUSBAND gave it to her...all things through the man in that culture); this is not typical. The father of the victim is probably a very gentle soul himself, he's deferring to his wife and in the public square you wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to play the Big Man on Campus, just for the sake of posturing.

Of course, the story is being used in internal media as an example of "honoring" women, when in actual fact she should have been given half the power to decide the murderer's fate by right...but that's a gripe for another day!

The murderer in this circumstance is from a poor family; they have no money to bribe officials or pay off judges, so the murderer will remain in jail for the foreseeable future. He may get a pardon in old age at a religious holiday, who knows? He has his life after killing his friend, though, and where there is life there is hope!