-Caveat Lector- Below the line following is a petition to the United Nations, for the relief of atrocious human rights abuses of women in Afghanistan, which I am emailing here to UN offices and copying to others for supportive responses, including many media outlets for coverage of this issue as relates to covert US agency policies, et al. This petition seems to be a variation of another on the internet some months ago which was terminated because it was too successful and overwhelmed the server at Brandeis University. In addition to the points raised below I have two major concerns. First that this problem is generally perceived as a symptom of "fundamentalism" in the Islamic faith, which in fact is not the case, and I hope that any clarifying details on this can be sent out via appropriate media. In this regard I am inspired to know of the prominent leadership roles, such as that to the UN on the 13moon Global Peace Calendar Change proposal http://www.earthascending.com , taken by women like Mother Tynetta Muhammad in that segment of the American Islamic community known to themselves as the Nation of Islam, and to others as the "black Muslims" http://www.finalcall.com ). I hope that their example will be an inspiration for others in demonstrating increasing respect for the leadership of women as evidenced also in many indigenous American cultures (eg, the leaders of the Haudenosaunee "Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy", after which the "Founding Fathers" patterned the US system of goverment, are all chosen by women). http://www.sixnations.org Secondly, ample evidence exists to show that the so-called Taliban movement in political control of Afghanistan, which is responsible for this "gendercidal" policy there towards women, is a creation of the US CIA in its ongoing complicity with the illegal drug trade around the world (see http://www.copvcia.com and http://www.macronet.org/cia/ciadrugs.html ), meaning that the hoodwinked citizens of the United States, and their government, bear a significant share of the responsibility for this war upon the women of Afghanistan and so they must take direct responsibility for solving the problem by bringing out the truth about this "scandal of the century" as per the "tip of the iceberg" confession of CIA drug smuggling complicity in CIA Inspector General's internal investigation report volume2 now in Congress and almost buried from public view because of adverse political impacts for major figures in both Democratic and Republican Parties (see info & CIA IG report at www.copvcia.com ) and because of the enormous extent to which the American economy, the stock market, and the hidden "American Ethnic Cleansing Policy" (against Blacks, American Indians, etc.) are all addicted to illicit drug profits with the increasing police state and prison industry "necessary" to combat associated violence and street crimes. These and other issues related to oppression of women and minorities will be among the many social and environmental survival issue messages carried next year from San Francisco (January 15th MLK birthday) to Washington, DC (Columbus Day), to New York City for the United Nations 55th anniversary (October 24, 2000), to unite all survival issues in the prayer for "Global Peace Now!" as a universal human resolve and for a worldwide Global Peace Zone2000. Please add your message and support for GPW2000 http://www.globalpeacenow.org for its success as the first great transcontinental peace march of the new millennium of the Gregorian Calendar, and first peace march ever to inaugurate the harmonizing 13moon Global Calendar of Peace already presented to the United Nations this summer after the World Summit on Peace and Time at the UN associated University for Peace in Costa Rica. ------------------------------------- Please spare a minute to read this mail. Thank you. <<Rather than pass it on as is, I have added above suggestions to remedy the subject problem and sending to UN offices now rather than wait until 50 people have signed below because the "chain letter" format of this request is not consistent with my service agreement with my ISP provider and this format ultimately results in many duplicated names being sent with an impossible job to sort out the actual numbers of endorsers by ultimate recipients (even if their server can keep up). I suggest each person receiving this send this or a variation/expanded version to addressees above, individually instead of lists of 50, and whatever other media, government, and public contacts that you can.>>>-dcw 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. 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 'misbehaviour'. 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 have mostly left the country. 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, rocking or crying, most of them in fear. One doctor is considering, when what little medication there is 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 right 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 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 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 1930s 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 1999 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) Shahana S Ahmed, Nairobi, Kenya 2) Tashmin Khamis, Karachi, Pakistan. 3) Frank Haupt, Bern, Switzerland 4) Adrian Coad, Strasbourg, France 5) Brian Skinner, Loughborough, England 6) Paul Chung, Loughborough, England 7) Bryan Knell, Woodhouse Eaves, England 8) Richard Tiplady, Chesham, England 9) Carolyn Skinner, Ilford, England 10) Mark Birchall, Putney, England 11) Graham Wintle, Surbiton, England 12) John Tindall, Chessington, England 13) Keith Birch, Chessington, England 14) Andrew King, Haywards Heath, England 15) David Sprouse, Cuckfield, England 16) Bob Campen, Haywards Heath, England 17) John Noble, Aberystwyth, Wales 18) Miranda Harrison, London, England 19) Christine Shuttleworth, London, England 20) Ingrid Lock, Hove, England 21) Tordis Mackey, Paraparaumu Beach, New Zealand 22) Ian Melrose, Paekakariki, New Zealand 23) Alicia Melrose, Paekakariki, New Zealand 24) Robert Anderson Tauranga, New Zealand 25) Jean Anderson, Tauranga, New Zealand 26) Perry Spiller, Hastings, New Zealand 27) Sherry Carroll, West Friendship, Maryland 28) David Crockett Williams, Tehachapi CA, USA [sent now, start over] 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. Important PS. It is best to 'copy and paste' rather than forward or redirect this petition DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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