| militant afghan : Subject:
Afghanistan reality
Please sign at the bottom to support, and include your
town. 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
sarabande@brandeis.edu
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.
Melissa Buckheit
Brandeis University
TEXT:
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
todeath 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
misbehavior. 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, in protest, have mostly
left the
country,
taking medicine and psychologists and other things
necessary to treat the sky-rocketing level of depression
among women.
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,
perpetually 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.
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.
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
Americans do not
understand. If we can threaten military force in
Kosovo in the name
of human rights for the sake of ethnic Albanians,
Americans 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 States and the U.S. Government and that the
current
situation overseas will not be tolerated. Women's
Rights is not a
small issue anywhere and it is UNACCEPTABLE for women in
1998 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
the United States.***** >>
1) Leslie London, Cape Town, South Africa
2) Tim Holtz, Boston, MA
3) Joyce Millen, Cambridge, MA
4) Diane Millen, Falls Church, Va.
5) Bill Millen, Falls Church, Va.
6) Milt Eisner, McLean VA
7) Harriet Solomon, Springfield, VA
8) Arlene Silikovitz, West Orange, NJ
9) Susanna Levin, New Rochelle, NY
10)Ruth Slater, New Rochelle,NY
11)Elisabeth Keane, Westport, CT
12)Mercedes Lopez-Morgan, Chappaqua, NY
13)Pete Morgan, Chappaqua, NY
14) Aaron Cela, Chappaqua, NY
15) Michelle Lee, San Francisco, CA
16) Karen Muiter, San Mateo, CA
17) Nate Walker, North Hills, CA
18) Jasmyn Hatam San Jose, CA
19) Josephine Thompson, Pacific Grove, CA
20) Donnie Gallegos, San Francsico, CA
21) Kate Lauer, New York, NY
22) Melanie H. Stein, New York, NY
23) Emanuela Silvestri, Brussels, Belgium
24) Thinam Jakob, Brussels, Belgium
25) Dieter Birkenmaier, Brussels, Belgium
26) Marleen Homan, Brussels, Belgium
27) Elisabetta Montaguti, Brussels, Belgium
28) Brunhilde Schültke, Brussels, Belgium
29) Elsa De Persio, Brussels, Belgium
30) Marco Pecci, Brussels, Belgium
31) Anna Herrero, Brussels, Belgium
32) Paloma Martin, Brussels, Belgium
33) Montserrat Ramon, Barcelona, Spain
34) Kerstin Beyer, Bremerhaven, Germany
35) Katrin Iken, Bremerhaven, Germany
36) Ann Vanreusel, Gent, Belgium
37)Nic Smol, Gent, Belgium
38) Godelieve Gheysen, Gent, Belgium
39) wout Boerjan, Gent, Belgium
40) Deborah Goffner, Toulouse, France
41) Arnaud Bottin, Toulouse, France
42) Milos Grundman, Toulouse, France
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