Messages in this thread | | | From | SAJI R <> | Subject | please help them | Date | Mon, 8 Mar 1999 11:09:39 +0530 |
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>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 sara-bande@brandeis.edu <mailto:sara-bande@brandeis.edu>
>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 > >(Remark from n°28-Olivier Houdas : the talibans got there thanks to US >military aid... they were supposed to be better than communists) > >TEXT: > >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, trans-lators, doctors, lawyers,artists and writers have >been forced from their jobs and stuffed into their homes, so that >depress >ion >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
>w >ay. > >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 >thin >g', >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 for >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 out-rage 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 other countries and their >Governments 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 the United States.***** > >1) Leslie London, Cape Town (South Africa) >2) Tim Holtz, Boston, MA (USA) >3) Joyce Millen, Cambridge, MA (USA) >4) Carmelo Vazquez, Madrid (Spain) >5) Jesus Martin, Madrid (Spain) >6) Belen Lopez Celada, Madrid (Spain) >7) Laura Malefakis, Madrid (Spain) >8) Mariangeles Fernandez (Spain) >9) Daniel J. Bustelo Elicabe-Urriol (Spain) >10) Ana Maria Sanchez Duran, Madrid (Spain) >11) Anna Ramirez Galvan, Barcelona (Spain) >12) Alberto Fernandez Liria, Madrid (Spain) >13) Lina Rodriguez Rodrigo, Madrid (Spain) >14) Jose Maria Gomez Ros (Spain) >15) Sandro Onori, Rome (Italy) >16) Piergiorgio Cerello, Torino (Italy) >17) Valeria Cappa, Torino (Italy) >18) Laura Pastore, Torino (Italy) >19) Carlo Bruschi, Torino (Italy) >20) Silvia Trini Castelli, Torino (Italy) >21) Luciano Gaido, Torino (Italy) >22) Carlo Ricchiardi, Torino (Italy) >23) Gabriele Ricchiardi, Torino (Italy) >24) Barbara D'Anna, Torino (Italy) >25) Arnaud Leroy, Paris (France) >26) Jean-Daniel Richerd, Montreal (Canada) >27) Vincent Dubois, Taipei (Taiwan RoC) >28) Olivier Houdas, Paris (France) >29) Vivian Ng, Singapore 30) Linda Lim, Singapore 31) Max Wang, Singapore 32) Steven .B 33) John (Singapore) 34) Saji R, Kerala (INDIA),
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