From: "Luis Fernando Alonso" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Oralia Preble-Niemi" <[log in to unmask]>,
"Luis F Alonso Ovalle" <[log in to unmask]>,
"alfred moesker" <[log in to unmask]>,
"Travis Mitchell" <[log in to unmask]>,
"rebecca kiger" <[log in to unmask]>,
"Kyle Johnson" <[log in to unmask]>,
"David Gohre" <[log in to unmask]>, "Ana M Sanchez Fonseca"
<[log in to unmask]>,
"españolvbA==" <[log in to unmask]>,
"Dothee" <[log in to unmask]>,
"Francesco D'Introno" <[log in to unmask]>,
"Ana M Diaz" <[log in to unmask]>,
"Alejandro Barriales" <[log in to unmask]>,
"Alejandro barriales" <[log in to unmask]>,
"Cesar Alegre" <[log in to unmask]>,
"JUAN C ZAMORA" <[log in to unmask]>,
"Sharon William" <[log in to unmask]>,
"Michael D Vrooman" <[log in to unmask]>,
"L-Soft list server at TAUNIVM (1.8b)" <[log in to unmask]>,
"Margarita Suñer" <[log in to unmask]>,
"Gregoy T. Stump" <[log in to unmask]>,
"Gregory Stump" <[log in to unmask]>,
"Tim Stowell" <[log in to unmask]>,
"Grad. Secretary" <[log in to unmask]>,
"RSEL Secretaría" <[log in to unmask]>,
<luisalo@arrakis>, <[log in to unmask]>
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 arelative. 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 suiciderate 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 in the
street, even if they hold Ph.D. 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-rocketinglevel 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. Men 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
subhuman 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 US deep south in the
1930s 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 we can threaten military forcein Kosovo in the name
of human rights for the sake of ethnic Albanians,then we 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 subhuman
and so much as property. Equality and human decency is a RIGHT not a
freedom, whether one lives in Afghanistan or anywhere else.
1) Sanna Yrjdnd, Oulu, Finland
2) Andrea Righini, Bologna, Italy
3) Carla Chiarini,Bologna,Italy
4) Claudia Farabegoli, Bologna, Italy
5) Michelle Armand, Hull, Quibec, Canada
6) Marie-France Paradis, Quibec, Quibec, Canada
7) Chantal Dorf, Kigali, Rwanda
8) Belinda Buysse, Houtem, Belgium
9) Griet Deforce, Gent, Belgium
10) Gertie Brughmans, De Pinte, Belgium
11) Kristel Moncarey, Ninove, Belgium
12) Carlo Janssens, Londerzeel, Belgium
13) Didier Martiny, Kampenhout, Belgium
14) Katrien Goudmaeker, Rixensart, Belgium
15) Claire Steenberghen, Sint-Joris-Winge, Belgium
16) Sven Aerts, Antwerp, Belgium
17) Pavla Jandakova, Brno, Czech Republic
18) Nicole Etchart, Santiago, Chile
19) Lee Davis, Budapest, Hungary
20) Lisa Cannon, Washington, DC
21) Susan Kelly, New York City, US
22) Tom Crippen, New York City, US
23) Christina Pretto, New York City, US
24) Jo LaFontaine Van Buskirk, Fayette, IA, US
25) Laura D. Bellmay, Collinsville, CT, USA
26) David Long, Brattleboro, VT, USA
27) Mark Pfohl, Brattleboro, VT, USA
28) Melanie Sroka, Montague, MA, USA
29) Arieh Kurinsky, Wendell, MA, USA
30) Oralia Preble-Niemi, Chattanooga, TN, USA
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, [log in to unmask] and to:
* Angela King, Special Advisor on Gender Issues and the Advancement of
Women, UN, [log in to unmask]
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.
Lala
**************************************
Oralia Preble-Niemi,Ph.D.
Professor and Head
Foreign Languages & Literatures
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Chattanooga, TN 37403
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