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- Showing 2 posts filed under: Region:Middle East [–] published between Aug 01, 2011 and Aug 31, 2011 [Show all]
Restorative Councils help Pakistani police
from the article in PeaceBuilder:
As the founding director of JustPeace International, Ali Gohar (MA ’02) has worked at updating the practice of jirga, an ancient tradition in Pakistan whereby respected and wise elders deliberate in an open community forum to resolve conflicts. In 2003, he and fellow CJP graduate Hassan Yousufza (MA ’03) co-authored Pukhtoon Jirga, a book available for downloading at www.justpeaceint.org.
In a 2010 interview with Insight on Conflict, Gohar explained that he was raised in a traditional Pashtun culture: “My family was involved in enmities, which affected my childhood so much that I promised to do something against the traditions of revenge, honour killing, shame factors, and cruelties by the name of honour.” As an adult, he worked as a social welfare commissioner for Afghan refugees, where he saw “more violence, destruction, kidnapping, murder, and displacement of refugees.”
In April 2011, Gohar told journalist Lis Horta Moriconi of Comunidad Segura (www.comunidadesegura.org) that EMU professor Howard Zehr and his teachings on restorative justice inspired Gohar to tap his own jirga system as a “means to mitigate conflict and contribute towards peacebuilding.”
Aug 10, 2011 Country:Pakistan, Region:Middle East, Indigenous
Iranian woman blinded by acid attack pardons assailant as he faces same fate
from the article by Saeed Kamali Dehghan in The Guardian:
A woman blinded with acid in Iran has pardoned her attacker, a man who was scheduled to lose his sight in an eye for an eye punishment on Sunday.
Majid Movahedi, 30, had been taken to Tehran's judiciary hospital to be blinded with acid after being rendered unconscious, but Ameneh Bahrami, his victim, spared him at the last minute, Iran's semi-official Isna news agency reported.
Iran's judiciary had given the green light to the administration for the retributive punishment, which would have been the first blinding of a convict in the country, but human rights groups across the world called on Bahrami, who had asked for eye for an eye justice in the court, to pardon him.
Aug 02, 2011 Country:Iran, Story, Case:Violence, Region:Middle East
