From: Roxtica-AT-aol.com
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 02:50:51 EDT
Subject: referring to email hoaxes



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A couple of weeks ago there was a lot of discussion of the petition for 
Afghan Women's rights.  I remembered seeing the email prior to the Sept. 11 
catastrophe.  It just seems to condemn the Afghanistan Culture and bring more 
scare hype to our society.  Which also brings to mind the special on CNN, 
"Women beneath the Veil" (which showed Women being shot in the middle of some 
field for defying strict Islam laws).   Of course it is so convenient to have 
that special on CNN during these times.  We just need to remain objective and 
wary of what we see on Television or the forwards we receive in email.
here is an article on hoax emails:
by www.urbanlegends.com



Petition for Afghan Women's Rights Posted: 01/23/99 Here's another entry in 
the "pointless petition" category. This was a sincere effort, but misguided. 
The email address is no longer valid, for reasons which will be explained 
below. Email text contributed by Tony Alston: 
The Taliban's War on Women: **** Please Sign at the bottom to support and 
include your town. If you receive this list with more than 50 names on it, 
please email 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 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 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 are 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' have 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 told me that we in the United States 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 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 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.***** (*** To add your 
name to the petition, simply highlight all of the text, and in "EDIT" click 
on "COPY". Then start a new EMAIL, and after addressing it to your mailing 
list, and adding a subject line, go to the body of the EMAIL letter, and in 
"EDIT" click on "PASTE." This will give you everything that you copied. Now 
go to the bottom of the document, add your name. The document is now ready to 
send.) 
    

Guide's note:  The information above is mostly accurate and the cause worthy. 
Unfortunately, the well-meaning individual who created this message chose the 
wrong means by which to accomplish her goal. Here is Brandeis University's 
explanation for having cancelled that person's email privileges and deleting 
all submitted copies of the petition unread: 
> Please read this message carefully, especially the next two sentences. Do 
> not reply to this email. Do not forward this email to anyone else. Anyone 
> who needs a copy, already has one. Do not make things worse. Do not "help" 
> by forwarding this message to everyone who has corresponded with you on 
> this subject. Due to a flood of hundreds of thousands of messages in 
> response to an unauthorized chain letter, all mail to 
> sarabande-AT-brandeis.edu is being deleted unread. It will never be a valid 
> email address again. If you have a personal message for the previous owner 
> of that address, you will need to find some means other than email to 
> communicate. sarabande-AT-brandeis.edu was not an organization, but a person 
> who was totally unprepared for the inevitable consequences of telling 
> thousands of people to tell fifty of their friends to tell fifty of their 
> friends to send her email. It is our sincere hope that the hundreds of 
> thousands of people who continue to attempt to reply will find a more 
> productive outlet for their concerns. There are several excellent 
> organizations and individuals doing real work on the issues raised. Some of 
> them were mentioned in sarabande's letter. None of them authorized her 
> actions. We suggest that you contact them through non-virtual channels to 
> help. They all have web sites with information and contact points. Unlike 
> sarabande, they can channel your energy in useful directions. Do not let 
> this incident discourage you. Please do not forward unverified chain 
> letters, no matter how compelling they might seem. Propagating chain 
> letters is specifically prohibited by the terms of service of most Internet 
> service providers; you could lose your account. 
> 
    
    


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