>>> 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
>>> misbehaviour. 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 have mostly left the country. 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, 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 right 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 in a part of the world
>>> that Westerners may not understand.
>>>
>>> If we 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) Shahana S Ahmed, Nairobi, Kenya
>>> >2) Tashmin Khamis, Karachi, Pakistan
>>> >3) Frank Haupt, Bern, Switzerland
>>> >4) Adrian Coad, Strasbourg, France
>>> >5) Brian Skinner, Loughborough, England
>>> >6) Paul Chung, Loughborough, England
>>> >7) Bryan Knell, Woodhouse Eaves, England
>>> >8) Richard Tiplady, Chesham, England
>>> >9) Carolyn Skinner, Ilford, England
>>> >10) Mark Birchall, Putney, England
>>> >11) John Field, Wimbledon, England
>>> >12) Mark Northage, Brisbane, Australia
>>> >13) Lynda MacInnes, London, England
>>> >14) Andy Griffiths, London, England
>>> >15) Barry Matthews,London, England
>>> >16) Anna Lewis, London , England
>>> >17) Rachel Hawkshaw, London, England
>>> >18) Melanie Fitzpatrick, London, England
>>> >19) Melinda Jacoby-Hogg, London, England
>>> >20) Vicky Dimer, London, England
>>> >21) Geoffrey Hill, Tokyo, Japan
>>> >22) Catherine Aquilina, Sydney, Australia
>>> >23) Julia Ridout, Sydney, Australia
>>> >24) Sharyn Joseph, Sydney, Australia
>>> >25) Kerrie Edwards, East Gosford, Australia
>>> >26) Suzie Maleady, Kildare, Ireland
>>> >27) Chiara Keohane, Cork, Ireland
>>> >28) David Walker, Dublin, Ireland
>>> >29) Grainne Farren, Dublin, Ireland
>>> >30) Nuala O'Donnell, Donegal, Ireland
>>> >31) Sinead Breen, Wexford, Ireland
>>> >32) Mary Dunne, Dublin, Ireland
>>> >33) Jacqueline Allan, Dublin, Ireland
>
>>> >34) Anne FitzGerald, Dublin, Ireland
>>> >35) Denise Puech, Dublin, Ireland
>>> 36) Emer O'Reilly, Naas, Ireland
>>> 37) Maria Scanlon, Galway, Ireland
>>> 38) Deirdre Warren, Cork, Ireland
>>> 39) Aine Lynch, Wexford, Ireland
>>> 40) Denise McGrath, Sydney, Australia
>>> 41) Lisa Bradock, Perth, Australia
>> 42) Karen Loveland, Perth, Australia
>> 43) Natasha Collier, Sydney, Australia
>>44) Sarah Fisher, London, England
>>45) Katharine Robbins, London, England
>> 46) Katherine Falconer, Newcastle, England
47) David Wood, Newcastle, England
>>> **** 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 Adviser on Gender Issues and
>>> the Advancement of Women, [log in to unmask]
>>>
>>> Even if you decide not to sign, please be considerate and do
>>> not kill the petition.
>>>
>>> Thank you.
>>>
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