-Caveat Lector-
Truth or Fiction ?? Propoganda or Realism ??
perhaps laying the foundations for 'The Last Crusade' ??
in a nice civilised sort of way ??
Andrew Hennessey
Dear friends,
Please forgive me if you hate getting petitions through email...I think
this one is worth the effort and it was sent to me by my family in the US.
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
TEXT:
The government of Afghanistan is waging a war upon women.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 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.
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.
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, citizens of the
world can certainly express peaceful outrage at the oppression, murder and
injustice committed against women by the Taliban.
RESUME DU TEXTE ANGLAIS
Depuis la prise de pouvoir par les Talibans en Afghanistan en 1996, la
situation des femmes est devenue intolerable: elles n'ont le droit
de sortir que couvertes des pieds a la tete du tchadri, et -meme
vetues ainsi- uniquement accompagnee d'un homme de leur famille. Les
injures et les coups, voir la lapidation a mort par la foule pour un
centimetre de peau devoile ne sont helas pas rares. Elles n'ont
plus le droit d'exercer aucune activite professionnelle. Les veuves sont
donc condamnees a la mendicite et la misere. Elles n'ont plus le
droit de se faire soigner, d'autant qu'il n'y a plus de femmes medecins !
Les associations humanitaires, les seules qui acceptaient de les
soigner, ont ete expulsees de Kaboul, la capitale. Cette regression
brutale et barbare dans le fanatisme islamiste le plus excessif qui
les condamne a une vie de sous-humaines plonge de nombreuses femmes
dans la depression severe et les pousse au suicide (meme dans un
pays ou ce genre d'incidences est difficile a evaluer, le constat est
palpable). Les signataires de la petition estiment cette situation
inacceptable, et demandent une intervention des Nations Unies pour
faire cesser cette barbarie.
*************
STATEMENT: In signing this, we agree that the current treatment of women
in Afghanistan is completely UNACCEPTABLE and deserves support and action by
the United Nations 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 sub-human and so much as property.
Equality and human decency is a RIGHT not a freedom, whether one lives in
Afghanistan
or elsewhere.
*************
1) Suzanne Dathe, Grenoble, France
2) Laurence COMPARAT, Grenoble, France
3) Philippe MOTTE, Grenoble, France
4) Jok FERRAND, Mont St Martin, France
5) Emmanuelle PIGNOL, St Martin d'Heres, FRANCE
6) Marie GAUTHIER, Grenoble, FRANCE
7) Laurent VESCALO, Grenoble,FRANCE
8) Mathieu MOY, St Egreve, FRANCE
9) Bernard BLANCHET, Mont St Martin, FRANCE
10) Tassadite FAVRIE, Grenoble, FRANCE
11) Loic GODARD, St Ismier, FRANCE
12) Benedicte PASCAL, Grenoble, FRANCE
13) Khedaidja BENATIA, Grenoble, FRANCE
14)Marie-Therese LLORET, Grenoble,FRANCE
15)Benoit THEAU, Poitiers, FRANCE
16)Bruno CONSTANTIN, Poitiers, FRANCE
17) Christian COGNARD, Poitiers, FRANCE
18) Robert GARDETTE, Paris, FRANCE
19) Claude CHEVILLARD, Montpellier, FRANCE
20) gilles FREISS, Montpellier, FRANCE
21) Patrick AUGEREAU, Montpellier, FRANCE.
22) Jean IMBERT, Marseille, FRANCE
23) Jean-Claude MURAT, Toulouse, France
24) Anna BASSOLS, Barcelona, Spain
25) Mireia DUNACH, Barcelona, Spain
26) Michel VILLAZ, Grenoble, France
27) Pages Frederique, Dijon, France
28) Rodolphe FISCHMEISTER, Chatenay-Malabry, France
29) Cyrille FORESTIER, St Paul lez Durance, France
30) Nava Moran, Rehovot, Israel
31) Nili Ben-Yehezkel, Rehovot, Israel
32) Ruth Peled, Rehovot, Israel
33) Anne J. Sartiel, Kfar Hakhoresh, Israel
34) George C. Rosenwald, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
35) Joel Allison ,CT, USA
36) Christina Spiesel, New Haven, CT
37) Bonnie Farber, Glastonbury, Ct.
38) Madeleine Keeve, Portland, OR
39) Isabel Weisinger, Bronx, NY
40) Andrea Weisinger-Ilardi, Bronx, NY
41)Susan Fisher, Edinburgh Scotland
42) Morgan MacInnes, Edinburgh, Scotland
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