"Windows" by Tatiana Nazarenko, 1944, Russia -- from the series "A Thin Veneer of Civilization"
Has the world gone mad?
Is the veneer of human civilization thinner than we'd like to think -- and cracking?
First, it was the Japanese "artist" who fed his cooked genitals to diners each paying $250.
Then it was that naked man eating the face of a homeless man in Miami.
Now it's a professor from Iran who cut off and ate his wife's lips because she had insulted his "honor" by allegedly having an affair.
Richard Orange reports for the UK's Daily Mail, May 31, 2012, that a former associate professor at Sweden's prestigious Karolinska medical institute is being held in police custody for cutting off his wife's lips with a knife and then eating them in Stockholm. The man is from Iran and was doing post-doctoral research at the institute in 2010.
According to Sweden's Aftonbladet newspaper, the 52-year-old man flew into a jealous rage over suspicions that his much younger wife had been having an affair. In a closed court hearing, the man admitted to cutting off his wife's lips, saying it was retaliation. A source with knowledge of the matter told Aftonbladet, "It was honour related. He doesn't seem to regret a thing. He believes she insulted him."
The assault was so brutal that the prosecutor tried to have him charged for attempted murder. But the court downgraded the charge to aggravated assault.
Ingela Hessius Ekman, who represents the victim, said her client may have suffered irreparable damage. "She has very serious injuries, doctors can not yet determine whether she can be healed or not. She's in a lot of pain."
The trial is due to start at the beginning of July. In the meantime, the cannibal attacker is employed by a university in Tehran, but still lived partly in Stockholm, where he collaborated with his old research group at the university and used its library and email services.
According to Sweden's English-language news source The Local, the unnamed attacker reportedly has several children from a previous marriage, but a few weeks after divorcing his first wife he married a much younger woman -- the victim of his vicious assault.
A former colleague called news of the attack "a shock" and recalled the researcher as "friendly" when they worked together.
The man is scheduled to undergo a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation before the expected filing of a formal indictment by June 7th.
~Eowyn
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