The Talibans' war on women

[Acsady Judit]

>From: "Eva Lanyi" <lanyi at novell.usis.hu>
>Organization: USIS
>To: thun at gandalf.elte.hu, ajutka at caesar.elte.hu, bolyan at usis.hu,
>        nane at posta.net, jhalasz at ozon.zpok.hu, estbud at ibm.net,
>        pflederman at compuserve.com, adamik at ludens.elte.hu,
>        jnogradi at mail.matav.hu, habeas at c3.hu
>Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 09:03:09 CET
>Subject: The Talibans' war on women
>Reply-to: lanyi at usis.hu
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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 are the 50th,
>100th, 150th signature, please e-mail a copy of it to
>sarabande at brandeis.edu
>
>Even if you decide not to sign, please be considerate and do not kill
>the petition, please send a copy of it to sarabande at brandeis.edu.
>
>Thank you.  It is best to copy rather than forward the petition.
>
>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  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 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, 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. 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.
>
>
>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 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
> 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) Ruth Slater, New Rochelle,NY
>11) Elisabeth Keane, Westport, CT
>12) Mercedes Lopez-Morgan, Chappaqua, NY
>13) Pete Morgan, Chappaqua, NY
>14) Aaron Cela, Chappaqua, NY
>15) Michelle Lee, San Francisco, CA
>16) Karen Muiter, San Mateo, CA
>17) Nate Walker, North Hills, CA
>18) Jasmyn Hatam  San Jose, CA
>19) Jenny Frazee, Milpitas, CA
>20) Marisa Wessler, Fontana, CA
>21) Elaine Stewart, Fort Lauderdale, FL
>22) Linda D. Whitman, Pompano Beach, FL
>23) Marda L. Zimring, Boca Raton, FL
>24) Judith A Weinstein, New York, NY
>25) Sarah Booth, NYC, NY
>26) Rachel Kaberon, Brooklyn, NY
>27) Myrna Stevens, LIC, NY
>28) Nadine Newlight, Hong Kong, SAR, PRC
>29) Lisa Hopkinson, Hong Kong, SAR, PRC
>30) Ivy Ning, Hong Kong, SAR, PRC
>31) Michael Ma, Singapore.
>32) Miles Taylor, Edinburgh, Scotland
>33) Michala Palethorpe, Singapore
>34) Judi Kelly, Hong Kong
>35) Geri Clisby, Hong Kong
>36) Marion E. Jones, Regina, Sk, Canada
>37) Michelle S. Mood, Gambier, Ohio, USA
>38) Jane Duckett, York, UK.
>39) Chris Torrens, Shanghai, China.
>40) Liza Lort-Phillips
>41) Droma Sangmu, New York
>42) Alison Joyner, Lhasa
>43) Caragh Coote, Dublin
>44) Monica Gorman, Dublin
>45) Brian Cumiskey, Ennybegs, IRL
>46) Franck Derrien, Paris
>47) Frangoise Gaillard, Brive,
>France 48) Frangois Requier, Brive, France
>49) Maria Grazia Calasso, Siena, Italia
>50) Marco Todeschini, Milano, IT
>51) Giacomo Todeschini, Trieste, Italia
>52) Maria Michela Marzano, Paris, Francia
>53) Luca Parisoli, Paris, Francia
>54) Michela Pereira, Siena
>55) Dino Buzzetti, Bologna
>56) Irhne Rosier-Catach, Paris
>57) Lia Formigari, University of Rome
>58) Susan Petrilli, University of Bari
>59) Jesper Hoffmeyer, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
>60) Robert Zachariae, University of Aarhus, Denmark
>61) Knud-Erik Sabroe. University of Aarhus, Denmark
>62) Csilla Kollonay Lehoczky, CEU - ELTE, Budapest, Hungary
>63) Sophia L. Kalman, Disability Rights Advocates, Budapest, Hungary
>64) Eva Lanyi, Budapest, Hungary
>
>Eva Lanyi, Cultural Assistant
>USIS Budapest
>Bank Center Building
>H-1054, Szabadsag ter 7.
>36-1 - 302-6200, fax: 36-1 - 302-0327
>E-mail: elanyi at usis.hu
>
>