An Iranian man has been sentenced to be blinded after brawling with a neighbour and leaving the man without sight in one eye.

A court in the Iranian capital Tehran has sentenced the 45-year-old man, name not reported, to be blinded under the country’s legal principle of retribution, known as ‘qisas’.

Qisas allows criminals convicted of violent offences to be subjected to a form of retaliation.

The punishment was meted out because the defendant brawled with a neighbour in the street and left the man blind in one eye, according to the news site IranWire.

Reports did not specify if the defendant is to be blinded in one eye like his injured neighbour or in both.

IranWire said blinding has been used as a punishment before in Iran although it is still considered rare.

Blinding was first handed down as a punishment by an Iranian court in 2008 when a defendant was sentenced for committing an acid attack. However, the victim pardoned the criminal at the last moment.

A similar incident took place in 2015 when Iranian doctors gouged the eye out of a convict who had also committed an acid attack.

In 2016, a man received the punishment after he threw lime into the eyes of his niece, who was only four years old at the time and was left blinded by the attack.

The country’s penal code is partly based on punishments listed under sharia law as interpreted by the Twelver Shia Muslim clergy.

Human rights groups have regularly criticised the country for handing down corporal punishments and amputations to convicted criminals.

In February, the Iranian authorities were slammed by human rights activists for whipping Hadi Rostami, a mentally ill defendant, 60 times and sentencing him to have four fingers amputated.