One autumn afternoon 10 years ago, Ameneh Bahrami was leaving work in Tehran when she was confronted by a young man she had repeatedly refused to marry. The stubborn suitor, unable to cope with rejection, had pestered and threatened her many times before that day, but she had no idea what he was about to do.

“He had a red container in his hands,” she recalled. “He looked into my eyes and threw acid in my face.” Those few seconds left Bahrami, 26, blind and disfigured. ...

Iran’s Islamic penal code allows the victim or their heir – walli-ye-dam – to personally execute the condemned prisoner in retribution cases. In hangings, the heir has the option of pushing away the chair the convict is standing on....

At the last minute, as officials were counting down, she pardoned him. “I couldn’t do it, I knew I could not live with it until the end of my life,” she said. “I knew I would have suffered and burned twice had I done that.”