I can't remember when (or if) I last sent a round robin letter but here is one anyway kathryn Please spare a minute to read this mail. Thank you. 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 sky-rocketing level of depression among women. At one of the rare hospitals for women, a reporter found still, nearly lifeless bodies lying moti nless 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 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 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 same 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 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 Westerners may not understand. If Iife 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 inAfghanistan 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) Marianne Giroud, Zurich, Switzerland 2) Vera Koehli, Zurich, Switzerland 3) Hartmut Stiess, Zurich, Switzerland 4) Michael Sturm, Zurich, Switzerland 5) Adrian Jakob, Berne, Switzerland 6) Christian Jakob, Zurich, Switzerland 7) Barbara Rieker, Zurich, Switzerland 8) Chiara Lo Presti, Zurich, Switzerland 9) Kathrin Koch, Zurich, Switzerland 10) Gudrun Wassermann, Schvnkirchen, Germany 11) Maret Arndt, Kiel, Germany 12) Peter Bartels, Itzehoe, Germany 13) Priv.Doz. Dr. Fred Stevenson 14) Jeff Hollifield, Greenville, SC, USA 15) Irma Wolf, Berlin, Germany 16) Fiona Koster, Groningen, The Netherlands 17) Marlies Bodde, Groningen, The Netherlands 18) Jannie Van der Meer, Groningen, The Netherlands 19) Klaske Sikkes, Groningen, The Netherlands 20) Wietske Sikkes, Groningen, The Netherlands 21) Marjanne le Clercq, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands 22) Susan le Clercq, Nieuwegein, The Netherlands 23) Sandra Adara, Paris, France 24) Nafsika Papanikolatos, Athens, Greece 25) Panayote Dimitras, Athens, Greece 26) Christina Rougheri, Athens, Greece 27) Dimitris Angelidis, Athens, Greece 28) Grigoris Vallianatos, Athens, Greece 29) Dionisis Goussetis, Athens, Greece 30) Nikos Dimou, Athens, Greece 31) Veronika Leila Szente, Budapest, Hungary 32) Anja Stegen, Stockholm, Sweden 33) Jens Johnsson, Uppsala, Sweden 34) Matteo Pacca, Cagnes sur Mer, France 35) Christina Nordbladh, Nacka, Sweden 36) Hanna Larheden, Stockholm, Sweden 37) Susanne Marklund, Skelleftea, Sweden 38) Janice Ransom, Athlone, Ireland 39) Alexandra McMahon, EAPN Ireland 40) Robin Hanan, EAPN Ireland 41) Sadhbh O' Neill, Dublin, Ireland 42> Kathryn Marsh, Balbriggan, Ireland 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] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> and to: Angela King, Special Advisor on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, UN, >mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[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.
