Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 01:24:06 +0900
Subject: Women's Rights in Afghanistan


Subject:
       Women's Rights in Afghanistan


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-AT-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) Gillian Kenny, Brussels, Belgium
> 26) Barbara Kjær, Brussels, Belgium
> 27) Kirsten Christensen, Brussels, Belgium
> 28) Sandrine Branquet, Brussels, Belgium
> 29) Grazia Fiorello-Reina, Brussels, Belgium
> 30) Nathalie Champenois, Brussels, Belgium
> 31) Esra Tasasiz, Brussels, Belgium
> 32) Rebecca Townsend, Brussels, Belgium
> 33) Sandra Harcq, Brussels, Belgium
34) Valeria Gasperini, Brussels, Belgium
35) Anne Sinnaeve, Brussels, Belgium
36) Rebecca Sear, Brussels, Belgium
37) Fiona Borthwick, Kings Lynn, UK
38) Isabel Putinja, Brighton, UK
39) Courtney Harris, Toronto, Canada
40) Sonnet L'Abbe, Cheju, South Korea
41) Jerome Shaw, Cheju, South Korea


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