Tehran hospital manager hurt in acid attack

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — 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.

In a statement posted online, police said Dr. Siamand Anvari, the head of Ziaian Hospital, was attacked late Saturday while on his way home. Mahmoud Jabbarvand, one of the medics who treated him, was quoted by the semiofficial ISNA news agency as saying Anvari would not lose his vision.

Tehran police chief, Hossein Sajedinia, said the attackers have been arrested.

“Both acid attackers were identified and arrested within 24 hours. One of them is a physician and the other is a student,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Sajedinia as saying late Sunday. Sajedinia said the motive was related to their profession.

Meanwhile, IRNA reported Sunday that police had arrested a man for 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 IRNA 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 they 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. Iranian women must cover themselves in public and wear headscarves. But Iran’s police chief Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam has dismissed the idea that the women were attacked because of the way they dressed.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press.