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 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 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 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 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 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 as 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) Liz Jackman, Gloucester, England >9) Rangeli Sagell, Windhoek, Namibia >10) John Risbridger, Reading, England >11) Rebecca Thornton, Southampton, England >12)Vicky Tyrrell. Leigh, Lancashire.England. >13) Elizabeth Dunn. Skelton, Cleveland. England. >14)Norma Reed, Newark, Notts, England >15)Barbara Martin, Southwell, Notts, England. >16)Michael Martin, Southwell, Notts, England. >17)Gillian Brodie, Tauranga, New Zealand. >18)Jill Wassenaar, Tauranga, New Zealand. >19)Garry Ingram. Tauranga, New Zealand. >20)Sarah Bland, Auckland,New Zealand >21)Kirsten Bland, Auckland New Zealand >22)John M.Denne, Auckland, New Zealand >23)Robert Cobb, Auckland,New Zealand >24)Kim Stirling, Auckland, New Zealand >25) Kerri Lowe, Auckland New Zealand >26) Gillian Luke, Auckland, New Zealand >27)Kate Maltby, Auckland, New Zealand >28)Amanda Peel, Auckland, New Zealand >29)Logan Bairstow , Auckland , New Zealand >30) James Crompton, Auckland, New Zealand >31) Simon Laurent, Auckland, New Zealand >32) Jane Caldwell, Sydney, Australia >33) Bronwyn McEntee, Hong Kong >34) Roberta Fairbairn, San Francisco, USA >35) Victoria Hansen, Sydney, Australia 36) Dennis Gearon, Klamath Falls, OR, 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, >webadmin.hchr@un.org < >mailto:webadmin.hchr@un.org > >and to: >Angela King, >Special Advisor on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, >UN, >daw@undp.org < mailto:daw@undp.org > > > >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. -- ________________________________________________________________ Real friends are those who, when you feel you've made a fool of yourself, don't feel you've done a permanent job. ________________________________________________________________ Dennis K. Gearon (Kegley) Scientific Instrument Technician, School of EIT Oregon Institute of Technology - One of USA's 100 Best College Buys 3201 Campus Drive Klamath Falls, OR 97601 Voice 1-541-885-1563 FAX 1-541-885-1689 email gearond@oit.edu ________________________________________________________________