RAT women in Afghanistan (fwd)

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Subject: women in Afghanistan
Date:    Thu, 24 Feb 2000 17:54:06 -0000


----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Donajgrodzki
To: VP PRESIDENT ; VP FINANCE ; VP ED and WELFARE ; VP COMMS ; SPARKY ;
NERYS WILLIAMS ; MARTYN McCORMACK ; JOAN HOPE ; IAU ; DOMINIC GRAHAM ;
DIANNE WOOD ; CERI SMITH ; CAROL GORNALL ; BEAVER ; CATH BROMAGE ; DAN
BRYANT ; DANIEL MERRIOT ; ELSA@NBST ; GERALD TYLER ; GUS MANSOUR ; JAMES
RIVERS ; JOHN BURGIN ; KIRSTIE ELLIOT ; MUCUS ; NINA HEDLEY ; RACHEL WEBSTER
; ROB HOLLOWAY ; SARA FIELD ; YODA
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2000 12:31 PM
Subject: Afghanistan Human Rights Abuses


Please spare a minute to read this email. Thankyou. The government of
Afghanistan is waging a war upon women. The situation is getting so bad that
one person in an editorial of the Times compared the treatment of women
there  to the treatment of Jews in pre-Holocaust Poland.

Since the Taliban took power in 1996, women have had to wear burqua and have
been beaten and stoned in public for not having the proper attire, even if
this means simply not having the mesh covering in front of their eyes. One
woman was beaten to DEATH by an angry mob of fundamentalists for
accidentally exposing her arm while she was driving.

Another was stoned to death for trying to leave the country with a man that
was not a relative.  Women are not allowed to work or even go out in public
without a male relative; professional women such as professors, translators,
doctors, lawyers, artists and writers have been forced from their jobs and
stuffed into their homes, so that depression is becoming so widespread that
it has reached emergency levels.

There is no way in such an extreme Islamic society to know the suicide rate
with certainty, but relief workers are estimating that the suicide rate
among women, who cannot find proper  medication and treatment for severe
depression and would rather take their  lives than live in such
conditions,has increased significantly. Homes where a woman is present must
have their windows
painted so that she can never be seen by outsiders. They must wear silent
shoes so that they are never heard. Women live in fear of their lives for
the slightest misbehaviour. Because they cannot work, those without male
relatives or husbands are either starving to death or begging on the
street, even if they hold Ph.D.'s.

There are almost no medical facilities available for women, and relief
workers have mostly left the country. At one of the rare hospitals for
women, a reporter found still, nearly lifeless bodies lying motionless on
top of beds, wrapped in their burqua, unwilling to speak, eat, or do
anything, but slowly wasting away. Others have gone mad and were seen
crouched in corners,rocking or crying, most of them in fear.  One doctor is
considering, when what little medication that is left finally runs out,
leaving these women in front of the president's residence as a form of
peaceful protest.

It is at the point where the term 'human rights violations' has become an
understatement. Husbands have the power of life and death over their women
relatives, especially their wives, but an angry mob has just as much right
to stone or beat a woman, often to death, for exposing an inch of flesh or
offending them in the slightest way.

David Cornwell has said that those in the West should not judge the Afghan
people for  such treatment because it is a 'cultural thing', but this is not
even true. Women enjoyed relative freedom, to work, dress generally as they
wanted, and drive and appear in public alone until only 1996 -- the rapidity
of this transition is the main reason for the depression and suicide; women
who were once educators or doctors or simply used to basic human freedoms
are now severely restricted and treated as sub-human in the name of
right-wing fundamentalist Islam. It is not their tradition or 'culture', but
is alien  to them, and it is extreme even for those cultures where
fundamentalism is the rule.

Besides, if we could excuse everything on cultural grounds, then we should
not be appalled that the Carthaginians sacrificed their infant children,
that little girls are circumcised in parts of Africa, that blacks in the US
deep south in the 1930's were lynched, prohibited from voting, and forced to
submit to unjust Jim Crow laws.

Everyone has a right to a tolerable human existence, even if they are women
in a Muslim  country in a part of the world that Westerners may not
understand. If we can threaten military force in Kosovo in the name of human
rights for the sake of ethnic Albanians, then NATO and the West can
certainly express peaceful outrage at the oppression, murder  and injustice
committed against women by the Taliban.

*************

STATEMENT:

In signing this, we agree that the current treatment of women in Afghanistan
is completely UNACCEPTABLE and deserves support and action by the people of
the United Nations and that the current situation in Afghanistan will not be
tolerated. Women's Rights is not a small issue anywhere and it is
UNACCEPTABLE for women in 1999 to be treated as sub-human and so much as
property. Equality and human decency is a RIGHT not a freedom, whether one
lives in Afghanistan or anywhere else.

*************

1)      Shahana S Ahmed, Nairobi, Kenya
2)      Tashmin Khamis, Karachi, Pakistan.
3)      Frank Haupt, Bern, Switzerland
4)      Adrian Coad, Strasbourg, France
5)      Brian Skinner, Loughborough, England
6)      Paul Chung, Loughborough, England
7)  Bryan Knell, Woodhouse Eaves, England
8) Richard Tiplady, Chesham, England
9) David Hill, Beverley, England
10) Marjie Sutton, England
11) Doreen Price, England
12)     Marion Milburn, Australia
13) Jane Talbot Newcastle, NSW, Australia
14)Anne Batt, Perth, Western Australia
15)  Diana Ryan, Perth, Western Australia
16)    Annette Harres, Perth, Western Australia
17) Peter Irwin, Perth, Western Australia
18) Jill Arthur, Sydney, NSW, Australia
19) Phil Widders, Sydney, NSW, Australia
20) Amanda Thurecht, London, England
21)Andrea Floyd, London , England
22)Karen Morris, London, England
23)Enrique Lavado, London, England
24) Paula Hammond, London, England
25) Stephen Balchin, London, England
26) Robin Oakley, London, England
27) Jennifer Jellicorse, London, England,
28) Heather Oakley, London, England
29) Roger Oakley, London, England
30) Sylvia Oakley, London, England
31) Sacha Ratcliffe, Stalmine, England
32) Astrid Ratcliffe, Stalmine, England
33) Jamie Randall, London, England
34) Simon Rigby, London, England
35) Mark Donajgrodzki, Keele, England
36)Gerald Mandy Tyler, Cardiff, Wales
37) Jill Greenhalgh, Llangrannog, Wales
38) Erik Ehn, Greenbrae CA, US

**** Please sign to support,and include your town and country. Then copy and
e-mail to as many people as possible. If you receive this list with more
than 50 names on it, please e-mail a copy of it to:

Mary Robinson,High Commissioner, UNHCHR
webadmin.hchr@un.org

and to:

Angela King,Special Advisor on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women,
UN
daw@undp.org

Even if you decide not to sign, please be considerate and do not kill the
petition.
Thank you. It is best to copy rather than forward the petition.
Mark Donajgrodzki
Assistant Bars Manager
Keele University Students' Union
email: sta26@kusu.keele.ac.uk
phone: (01782) 583717
mobile: (0771) 514 1742

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