Sorry Ira, aku agak telat memberi tanggapan tentang masalah wanita di Afghan. aku sarankan jangan tanda tangani petisi itu karena kemungkinan berita yang mereka sebarkan adalah tidak benar. aku sendiri punya banyak teman yang mempunyai garis ke Afghan (militan). mereka memang menerapkan aturan yang ketat masalah wanita. tetapi itu berdasarka aturan Islam. dan tidak benar kalau mereka dianggap merendahkan martabat kaum wanita, justru mereka menjunjung tinggi martabat kaum wanita dengan landasan iman dan aturan dari Allah. percayalah sebagian dari berita bahwa kaum wanita ditindas adalah tidak benar. Salam yuni Ira Damayanti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 17:03:04 +0900 From: Kantei <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ini ada surat, berkaitan dengan yang lalu "Cewek Jangan Baca" Kupikir sebenarnya awal masalah yg dibahas si Hasan Basri itu seperti surat dibawah ini, kurasa... ini dari temanku yg misionaris itu, baiklah kufw aja ya? aku cukup bingung... mau ngediemin, gak enak soalnya dari teman seperjuangan. mau nandatangan, gak punya pendirian pasti mengenai yg satu ini. mau berargumen, gak tau harus bilang apa, nanti malah bertengkar. problemnya etnis religius banget sih..... sementara aku gak mendengar adanya bahasan dari kalangan muslim mengenai ini... dari kemarin aku tanyain gak ada yg jawab ya??? (sorry teman-teman kalo kepanjangan) tolong dibahas yaaaa..... p(^_^;q kanti =================================================================== Hi everyone! I apologise to those who have already received this email from someone else. For those who have not seen it yet: please take some time to read it! Thanks, Pali (and a couple million women in Afghanistan) Original message I know that most of you probably don't like reading group emails but this one I think is worth reading and thinking about. I know you don't know whether this will actually make a difference to the situation but I think it is worth a try when it really doesn't cost us anything. 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 every 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 mobhas 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 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 anywhere else. ***** 1) Bruce J. Malina, Omaha, NE 2) Raymond Hobbs, Hamilton, ON, Canada 3) Elizabeth Demaray, Kanata, ON, Canada 4) Fred Demaray, Kanata, ON, Canada 5) Leslie Penrose, Tulsa, OK 6) Susan Ross, Perkins, OK 7) Jeannie Himes, Tulsa, OK 8) Lois Adams, Tulsa, OK 9) Mona M. Miller, Fort Collins, CO 10) Kara A. Sheldon, Colorado Springs, CO 11) Gay Victoria, Colorado Springs, CO 12) Catherine Euler, Leeds, UK 13) Faith Muimo, Leeds, UK 14) Sanna Vehvildinen, Helsinki, Finland 15) Jussi Onnismaa, Helsinki. Finland 16) Marjatta Hahkio, Helsinki, Finland 17) Jouko Hahkio, Helsinki, Finland 18) Colin Sydes, Helsinki, Finland 19) Gavin Cowie, Helsinki, Finland 20) Andrew Walker, London, UK 21 Roberto Battista, London, UK 22) Hamish Makgill, Brighton, Uk 23) Naomi Beresford-Webb, London, UK 24) Theo Gupta, London, UK 25) Karyn Allen, Bath, UK 26) Sarah Cox, London, UK 27) Sam Gilpin, London, UK 28) Lawrence Carter, London, UK 29) Rebecca Gilpin, London, UK 30) Polly Hardwick, London, UK 31) Anne-Marie Weeden, London, UK 32) James Threapleton, London, UK 33) Hazel Mottram, Bristol, UK 34) Georgina Hyde, Sydney, Australia 35) Victoria Colgan, Sydney, Australia 36) Amanda Langley, Oxford, UK 37) Kylie Wilson, Sydney, Australia 38) Christina Lee, Sydney, Australia 39) Stephanie Wu, Sydney, Australia 40) Bec Coa, Sydney, Australia 41) Susan King, Sydney, Australia 42) Andrew Brown, Wollongong, Australia 43) Akos Balogh, Sydney, Australia 44) Stephanie Wong-See, Sydney, Australia 45) Miriam Chan, Sydney, Australia 46) Tracy Lam, Kobe, Japan **** 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, [EMAIL PROTECTED] and to: Angela King, Special Advisor on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, UN, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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. ____________________________________________________________________ Get your own FREE, personal Netscape WebMail account today at http://webmail.netscape.com.
