[Date Prev][Date Next] [Chronological] [Thread] [Top]

Re: RAT women in Afghanistan (fwd)

>From: shadowtackle@att.net
>Reply-To: rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
>To: rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
>Subject: RAT women in Afghanistan (fwd)
>Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 18:05:02 +0000
>
>----------------------  Forwarded Message:  ---------------------
>From:    "Jill Greenhalgh" <jill.greenhalgh@talk21.com>
>To:      "jodie Allinson" <jodieallinson@hotmail.com>, "ARMAR" 
><GRCOMUNI@SMINTER.COM.AR>, "boedi" <setiadi@freesurf.ch>, "Beatriz Camargo 
>Beatriz Camargo" <teatrosol@hotmail.com>, "city of Women" 
><koen.vandaele@guest.arnes.si>, "vanya constant" <constantx1@aol.com>, 
>"Florencia Coppola" <magda2a@cvtci.com.ar>, "quirine donia" 
><donia@knoware.nl>, "ELAN" <fire@elanw.demon.co.uk>, "Erik Ehn" 
><shadowtackle@worldnet.att.net>, "jenny freed" <j_freed@hotmail.com>, 
>"Aimee Greenberg" <TopCat7878@aol.com>, "judith harte" 
><judith.harte@which.net>, "Sha Sha Higby" <shashahigby@earthlink.net>, 
>"catherine hoffmann" <cathoffmann@hotmail.com>, 
><jenni@cultural-enterprise.com>, "felisa jezier" 
><felisajezier@netgate.com.uy>, "aleksandra jovicevic" <lucalu@EUnet.yu>, 
>"Elena Marino" <emarino@gelso.unitn.it>, "valerie lucas" 
><e.cottis@btinternet.com>, "sharon mazer" <s.mazer@drama.canterbury.ac.nz>, 
>"Lilicherie McGregor" <lilicherie.mcgregor@stonebow.otago.ac.nz>, "Maja 
>Mitic" <majanina@EUnet.yu>, "!
>muzikansky" <mzky@dircon.co.uk>, Carmen Ormeņo <carmelita@ciudad.com.ar>, 
>"David Parry" <lci@dircon.co.uk>, "playworks" <playwks@ozemail.com.au>, 
>"Alison Quinn" <alison.quinn@bbc.co.uk>, "amy rose" 
><gg.amyrose@netgates.co.uk>, "Chris Rowbury" <chris.rowbury@fdn.co.uk>, 
>"Michele Ryan" <michele@cultural-enterprise.com>, "Dave Southern" 
><southern@enterprise.net>, "Radici Teatro della" <tdr@tinet.ch>, "Olivera 
>Milos Todorovic" <dragic@EUnet.yu>, "Pamela Turner" 
><pamelanne@worldnet.att.net>, "Lisa Wolford" <lwolfor@bgnet.bgsu.edu>, 
>"women.voices" <women.voices@skynet.be>, "small world" 
><smallworld@enterprise.net>
>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
>39) Christopher Danowski, Minneapolis, MN, 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
>
>ANY OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS E-MAIL ARE THOSE OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND NOT
>NECESSARILY KEELE STUDENTS' UNION. THIS E-MAIL AND ANY FILES TRANSMITTED
>WITH IT ARE CONFIDENTIAL AND SOLELY FOR THE USE OF THE INTENDED RECIPIENT.
>
>IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED THIS E-MAIL IN ERROR PLEASE NOTIFY THE SENDER.
>
>
>

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com