OK, I don't want to gather up a possee and ride out to destroy all evil or
anything but I recieved this from a friend and it seamed important enough
to pass on. Let me apologise in advance for getting all serious but I
couldn't think of a better way to get this information out.
I should mention that the following petioion contains no mentiont to GVSB,
Disco, Jewl bashing(sorry tiffany!) or any general accepted form of fun
smarminess, and further more should not be taken as a submition for a
t-shirt idea! (I did think about adding a Paul Westerberg refrence, he's
so sensitive it couldn't be out of line, but I decided not to alter the
text.) Just an attempt to lighten the mood before I stifle someone:)
kel
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 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 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
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 subhuman 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, or that blacks in the 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 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 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.
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) Rabbi Gary Greene, Framingham, MA
11) Danny Siegel, Rockville, MD
12) Rabbi Neal Gold, Highland Park, NJ
13) Aimee Sousa, Highland Park, NJ
14) James Sousa, Highland Park, NJ
15) Peter Tatiner, Highland Park, NJ
16) Roberta Elins, New York, NY
17) Margaux Baran, Ne wYork, NY
18) Stephanie Donohue, New York, NY
19) Debbie Russ, NYC
20) Ariel Yan, NYC
21) Erin Burns, NYC
22) Shannon Slanker, New York, NY
23) Debbie R. Nadolney, New York, NY
24) Arlene Stein, Eugene, OR
25) Evlyn Gould, Eugene, OR
26) Karen J. Johnson, Eugene, OR
27) Judith Musick, Eugene, OR
28) Terri Heath, Eugene, OR
29) The Rev. Leslie Hall, Eugene, OR
30) Pastor, Russ Locke, San Diego, CA
31) Pastor Mary Alice McKinney, Anaconda, MT
32) Susan McKinney, Portland, OR
33) Lynn Evans, Portland, OR
34) Pat Williams, Portland, OR
35) Jan Bone, Portland, OR
36) Teri Jingling, Mead, WA
37) Debi Covert-Bowlds, Ferndale, WA
38) Jane Richardson, Seattle, WA
39) Karlene McAllister, St. Louis, MO
40) Athena Baerga, Jupiter, FL
41) Teri Drozdowki, Columbus, GA
42) Danielle T. Miot, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
43) Susan B. Loretta, Miami, FL
44) Gregory T.Burton , Ft.Worth, Tx
45) Daniel DeLoach, Ft. Worth, Tx.
46) Kelly Hart, Arlington, Tx
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