Please spare a minute to read this mail or just read the last paragraph
and
sign.
Thanks.
------
One woman was beaten to DEATH by an angry mob of fundamentalists for
accidentally exposing her arm while she was driving. 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.
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 widespreadthat 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 beseen 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.
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 in
Afghanistan
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) Fred R. Willitzkat, Kiel, Germany
11) Susanne Heckoetter, Giessen, Germany
12) Beate Schugk, Turku, Finland
13) Mike Cofferon, Dublin, Ireland
14) Paul Crossan, Dublin, Ireland
15) Martin Vahey Dublin,Ireland
16) Wendy Vahey,Dublin Ireland
17) Steven O'Conor, Dublin, Ireland
18) Deirdre O'Kane, Mullingar, Ireland
19) Sara O'Kane, Dublin, Ireland
20) Eileen O'Connor, Dublin, Ireland
21) Amy O'Kane, Mullingar, Ireland
22) Oscar O'Connor, Mullingar, Ireland
23) Hugo O'Connor, Mullingar, Ireland
24) Pauline Mossop, Dublin, Ireland
25) Kay Tyrrell, Dublin, Ireland
26) Peggy Tyrrell, Dublin, Ireland
27) Gerry Grogan,Dublin, Ireland
28) Jim Halpenny, Dublin Ireland
29) Louise Shanley, Dublin Ireland
30) Sophie Selden, Dublin, Ireland
31) Muriel Gerrits, Brussels, Belgium
32) Fleur Schut, Brussels, Belgium
33) Ravit Bechor, Brussels, Belgium
34) Ana Aguado, Brussels, Beligium
35) Jon Coniam, Brussels Belgium.
36) Claire Chazarain, La Hulpe Belgium
37) Elaine Sayers, Evere, Belgium
38) Tamara Zaur-Gora, Lodelinsart, Belgium
39) Marie-Caroline Le Brun, Brussels, Belgium
40) R�gine Eursels, Brussels, Belgium
41) Marco Di Martino, Brussels, Belgium
42) Moira King, Brussels Belgium
43) Laura Gregory, Brussels, Belgium
44) Lizzy Garratt, Brussels, Belgium
45) Andy Scott, Manchester, England
46) Marcio Rodrigues ,Brussels , Belgium
47) Lydia Greguric, London, United Kingdom
48) Dean Greguric, Armidale,Australia
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]
and to:
Angela King, Special Advisor on Gender Issues and the Advancement of
Women,
UN, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Even if you decide not to sign, please be considerate and do not kill
the
petition.
===
love and lines of liberation,
Dean
Deanarchist
_____________________________________________________________
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