>----------
>
>The Taliban's War on Women:
>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 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.
>
>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 urrent 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) Brigette Young, Los Angeles, CA
>20) Rebecca Kniss, Chico, CA
>21) Sarah Hayman, Whittier, CA
>22) Kendra Dole-Stoll, Salem, OR
>23) Robert L. Tolar, Portland, OR
>24) Lisa Cramer, Providence, RI
>25) Kristi Rudelius-Palmer, Minneapolis, MN
>26) Charmaine Crockett, Brooklyn, New York
>27) Anne Hemenway, New York, New York
>28) Ned Rothenberg. Brooklyn, NY
>29) Richard Wesley Nance, Birmingham, AL
>30) Melissa Buckheit, Brandeis University
>31) Lisa Cramer, Senior Research Officer, x 7395
>32) Guy Van Belle, Gent, Belgium
>33) Brenda Byl, Gent, Belgium
>34) Kathleen Van Heule, Gent, Belgium
>35) Kris Decleer, Gent, Belgium
>36) An Cliquet, Gent, Belgium
>37) Wim Cliquet , Tremelo , Belgium
>38) Sven Devriese, Wijnegem, Belgium
>39) Gunter Cieters, Zele, Belgium
>40) Peter Van Mele, Zwijndrecht, Belgium
>41) Leen Willaert, Leuven, Belgium
>42) Scholts Stijn, Leuven Belgium
>43) Frank Peeters, Antwerpen Belgium
>44) Artemis Stai, Athens, Greece =
>45) Saumya Uma, Mumbai, India
>46) Nabiha Zain Muhamad, Jakarta, Indonesia
>47) Lenah susianty, London, UK
>48) Yenni Kwok, Hong Kong
>49) Maria Lena, Medan, Indonesia
>50) Carla Anichi, Florence, Italia
>
>**** Please sign 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
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>Even if you decide not to sign, please be considerate and do not kill
>the petition. Thank you.
>
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