Tehran – Two attackers on a motorbike threw acid in the face of a Tehran hospital manager, police said Sunday, the latest in a string of such attacks that have mostly targeted women.
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In a statement posted online, police said Dr. Siamand Anvari, the head of Ziaian Hospital, was attacked late Saturday while on his way back home. Mahmoud Jabbarvand, one of the medics who treated him, was quoted by the semiofficial ISNA news agency as saying he would not lose his vision.
Police offered no motive for the attack.
Meanwhile Sunday, the official IRNA news agency said police arrested a man after throwing acid at the face of his wife in Shahreza, a small town near Isfahan in central Iran. Local police chief Col. Hamid Amirkhani described the attack as a “family dispute” and agency said the woman suffered minor injuries.
At least four women were attacked with acid in Isfahan in October, prompting protests. An ongoing police investigation into the Isfahan attacks suggests the attacks were carried out by the same individual. Police have arrested four suspects in the case but say the attacker has not yet been identified.
Local media have suggested the women were targeted because they failed to adhere to the country’s conservative dress code, though Iran’s police chief, Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, has dismissed that theory. Iranian women must cover themselves in public and wear headscarves.