Re: The Taliban's War on Women

1999-01-31 Thread Jan Matthieu

This document has been circulating for more than a month, comes back
regularly on every newsgroup I know, and should not be answered to, because
the organiser's e-mail adress has been removed, due to being inundated with
thousand upon thousands of answers. It's dangerous to ask people to mail
something to 50 others and then mail everything back to you. Just imagine
what is 50 to the 4th power only, by the first 50 people who send this
through you ideally get 2500 responding mails. Even if only 10% of the list
is reaching the next 50 you come at 62500 by the next stage. If only 10% of
those mails on the next step is 39.062.500. Even with only 1% of people
doing what is asked you still get... 390.625 responses. In the fourth
stage, assuming only 1% of the third stage continues (!) you come to an
absolutely impossible amount of returning mail, but by that time the
receiving mailbox (which belonged to a private person was already flooded
and had to be closed down).
You can try sending an e-mail to it.

Jan Matthieu
Flemish Green Party

--
> Van: Mehtap  Cakan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Aan: Caspar Davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Onderwerp: Re: The Taliban's War on Women
> Datum: zondag 31 januari 1999 2:01
> 
> On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Caspar Davis wrote:
> 
> > Please sign and pass on if you feel comfortable doing so:
> > 
> > 
> > -Forwarded Message-----
> > 
> > Subject: Please sign and pass on.
> > 
> >  The Taliban's War on Women:
> > 
> >   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 [EMAIL PROTECTED]




Re: Re: The Taliban's War on Women

1999-01-31 Thread Judyth Mermelstein

Caspar Davis,[EMAIL PROTECTED],Internet writes:
>...there certainly comes a point where further knowledge merely numbs or
>depresses.

Too true, unfortunately, and the condition of women in fundamentalist
countries is a case in point. I gather that support for the petition was
so great that the ISP receiving all the copies was flooded and closed
down the account. Anyway, don't feel guilty about passing the word
along--obviously, we all did, to the point where it became
unproductive.

Regards,

Judyth



Re: The Taliban's War on Women

1999-01-30 Thread Caspar Davis

I am advised on sound authority that when you send my original forward
of this name, with 50 signatures, to the recommended address, you get
in return a message saying that the address is no good.

I apologize for not checking this out prior to forwarding, and do not
recommend forwarding the message in the form I sent it to anyone, but
the information it contains may still be true and interesting to those
who are not yet overwhelmed by the degradation of the human race. It is
always a difficult call whether or not to pass on messages of such
sadness and horror. Up to a point, knowledge assists awareness, but
there certainly comes a point where further knowledge merely numbs or
depresses.

In any event, the exigencies of life will lead me to post less in the
future, and I intend especially to pass on fewer downers.

apologies and greetings to all,

Csapar





Re: The Taliban's War on Women

1999-01-30 Thread Mehtap Cakan

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Caspar Davis wrote:

> Please sign and pass on if you feel comfortable doing so:
> 
> 
> -Forwarded Message-
> 
> Subject: Please sign and pass on.
> 
>  The Taliban's War on Women:
> 
>   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 [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.
> 
>  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 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.
> 
> 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 ha

Re: The Taliban's War on Women

1999-01-30 Thread Durant

Yes, chain letters don't get you anywhere, they just clog up our
best source of information.
It is however, nice to see 
so many care. I think someone literate should re-write this letter 
to be sent to those in government, so that pressure can be expressed 
against all military/economical links with any states that violate
any homan rights.

Eva 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]



Re: The Taliban's War on Women

1999-01-29 Thread Michael Gurstein

Don't do anything with this...

The account at Brandeis where the petition goes has now been closed for a
couple of weeks and the account holder has gone to ground.  

Rule of thumb: Anything that says "copy and forward to as many people as
possible" should be shovelled into the bit bucket asap...

M
   

M

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Caspar Davis wrote:

>Please sign and pass on if you feel comfortable doing so:
>
>
>-Forwarded Message-
>
>Subject:     Please sign and pass on.
>
> The Taliban's War on Women:
>
>  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 [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.
>
> 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 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.
>
>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

STOP!!!-The Taliban's War on Women

1999-01-29 Thread Colin Stark

PLEASE STOP AND READ

***
At 09:49 AM 1/29/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Please sign and pass on if you feel comfortable doing so:
>
>-Forwarded Message-
>
>Subject: Please sign and pass on.
>
> The Taliban's War on Women:

SNIP
**

Wed 27 Jan 99
Hi All,

Last week I received this same chain letter from another source.

Being curious about why there was no authority referenced in the above
noted e-mail, no information as to the petition's disposition, nor about
the ambiguous instructions provided with it, I sent a message to
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> asking: "Where, when, and to whom will this
petition be presented?" The reply follows:

Doug
**


Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 15:43:21 -0500
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: The Taliban War on Women
X-Loop: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: sarabande address disabled <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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 other means to communicate.

The text of the chain letter was originally Copyright 1997 Feminist
Majority Foundation.

[EMAIL PROTECTED] 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.

Please also read:

http://athos.rutgers.edu/~watrous/pbs-funding-chain-letter-petition.html
http://www.wish.org/craig.htm
http://www.nbi.dk/~dickow/stop-chain-letter.txt
http://www.cancer.org/chain.html
http://urbanlegends.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa021198.htm
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-run-adverts-00.txt
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-run-spew-07.txt
http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACChainLetters.html

Any replies to this message will be deleted unread. The issue is closed.

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.






>
>  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 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>

snip




The Taliban's War on Women

1999-01-29 Thread Caspar Davis

Please sign and pass on if you feel comfortable doing so:


-Forwarded Message-

Subject: Please sign and pass on.

 The Taliban's War on Women:

  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 [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.

 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 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.

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
A

THE TALIBAN'S WAR ON WOMEN

1999-01-09 Thread Caspar Davis

This seems to me like a very tame and timid response if the atrocities
are indeed as they are described. I have cut out a couple of rather
apologetic paragraphs which seem quite unnecessary. If things are as
they are portrayed, it is certainly time for massive protest.

Caspar Davis



THE TALIBAN'S WAR ON WOMEN

  Please Sign at the bottom to support and include the name of
your city (and or zipcode). After signing please email a copy to
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

 Even if you decide not to sign, please be considerate and do not kill
the petition - pass it on to as many people as you can. Thank you.
Melissa Buckheit, Brandeis University

 NOTE: YOU WILL NEED TO CUT  THIS DOCUMENT AND PASTE  IT INTO A NEW
EMAIL TO SEND TO <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> AND TO SEND TO YOUR CONTACTS.

 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 PhD.'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 skyrocketing
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.

*
 STATEMENT:

 In signing this, I 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 subhuman and so much as property. Equality and human
decency is a RIGHT not a freedom, whether one lives in Afghanistan or
the United States.

 Signed: 

 SUGGESTED (REVISED) STATEMENT:

 In signing this, I declare that the current treatment of women in
Afghanistan is completely UNACCEPTABLE and that the women of
Afghanistan desperately need and deserve the support and action of the
people of the World. This sort of thing is absolutely disgusting. It is
totally unacceptable at any time or place, andmost certainly
unacceptable today.


 Signed:  Caspar Davis, Victoria, BC