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 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 (???) 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 life 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.
- Patrick Ballin, Brighton, UK
- Ben Ballin, Birmingham, UK
- Jill Denham, Yeovil, UK
- Ali Brownlie, Brighton, UK
- Cathie Holden, Exeter, UK
- Suniti Namjoshi
- Elke Ruehl, Frankfurt, Germany
- Birgit Albrecht, Frankfurt, Germany
- Sabine Behrends, Germany
- Ingrid Fuehrer, Germany
- Jutta Willand, Frankfurt, Germany
- Antje Vogdt, Paris, France
- Barbara Bova, Naples, Florida
- ruth Cavin, White Plains NY
- Serita Stevens, LA, Ca
- Adrian Muller, Bristol, UK
- Lauren Milne Henderson, Tuscany, Italy
- Tom Hope,Chianti,Italy
- Sophie Rose,Chianti,Italy
- Tim Hull, London,UK
- Sven Holly Nullmeyer, Berlin, Germany
- Bo Oliver Beckmann, Bremen, Germany
- Thomas Groene-Hincke, Bremen, Germany
- Torsten Groene, Muenchen, Germany
- Beate Kunhardt, Berlin, Germany
- Gernot Matzke, Berlin, Germany
- Bodo Schmidt, Koeln, Germany
- Bodo Busch, Koeln, Germany
- Shanti R. Strauch, Berlin, Germany
- Tilo Wieser, Berlin, Germany
- Alexander v. Vietinghoff, Berlin, Germany
- Susanne Michel, Jena, Germany
- Ivan F. Loncarevic, Jena, Germany
- Barbara Roitzheim, Cologne, Germany
- Inge M. Ambros, Vienna, Austria
- Peter F. Ambros, Vienna, Austria
- Bruno De Bernardi, Genova, Italy
- Riccardo Haupt, Genova, Italy
- Marina Cuttini, Trieste, Italy
- Lara Broggin, Trieste, Italy
- Michela Nadai, Trieste, Italy
- Luigi Bisanti, Milano, Italy
- Corrado Magnani, Torino, Italy
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. Thank you.
It is best to copy rather than forward the petition.
–
Corrado Magnani MD
Senior Epidemiologist
Cancer Epidemiology Unit
Reference Centre for Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention
(CPO Piemonte)
v. Santena 7
10126 Torino
Italy