Phil
----------------------
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.=20
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.=20
1) Marianne Giroud, Zurich, Switzerland
2) Vera Koehli, Zurich, Switzerland
3) Hartmut Stiess, Zurich, Switzerland
4) Oliver Schmidt, Berne, Switzerland
5) Manuela Oetterli, Lucerne, Switzerland
6) Christina Furrer, Zurich, Switzerland
7) Claudio Furrer, Rothrist, Switzerland
8) Priska Meier, Rothrist, Switzerland
9) Otto Pulver, Basel, Switzerland
10)Tom Meier, Basel, Switzerland
11) Patrik Kehrli, Riehen, Switzerland
12) Brigitte Alge, Lausanne, Switzerland
13) Christoph Alge, Vienna, Austria
14) Isabelle Hakenberg, Vienna, Austria
15) Veronika Neussl, Vienna, Austria
16) Peter Neussl, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
17) Marianne Linde Doblmayr, Strasbourg, France
18) Elfriede Artinger, Strasbourg, France
19) Imma Oppelik, Strasbourg, France
20) Thorsten Eisingerich, Strasbourg, France
21) Alexandra Schreiber, Vienna, Austria
22) Patricia Benda, Brussels, Belgium
23) Robert Stoeger, Paris, France
24) Norbert Feldhofer, Vienna, Austria
25) Andreas Pregesbauer, Vienna, Austria
26) Mathilde Hager, Vienna, Austria
27) Rainer Pilz, Vienna, Austria
28) Christopher Lamport, Vienna, Austria
29) Romana Lamport, Vienna, Austria
30) Dieter Hampel, Vienna, Austria
31) Linda Hampel_Bone, Vienna, Austria
32) Andreas Havlicek, Vienna, Austria
33) Gerda Blaha, Frankfurt, Germany
34) Christina Lorenz, Frankfurt, Germany
35)Gertrud Schmidt, Frankfurt, Germany
36)Ruediger Ludwig, Frankfurt, Germany
37) Isabella Kropik, Baden, Austria
38) Manfred Wiltner, Sarajevo, Bosnia
39) Binggeli J=FCrg, Zurich, Switzerland
40) Bernhard Wenger, Zurich, Switzerland
41) Cornelia Wenger, Zurich, Switzerland
42) Bruno Rais, Zurich, Switzerland
43) Brigitte Ntetmen, Kloten, Switzerland
44) J. C. Ntetmen, Kloten, Switzerland
45) Sascha Moll, K=FCsnacht, Switzerland
46) Philip Graham, Brisbane, 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,
webadmin.hchr who-is-at unorg.ch <mailto:webadmin.hchr@unorg.ch>
< mailto:webadmin.hchr@unorg.ch <mailto:webadmin.hchr@unorg.ch>=20
and to:
Angela King, Special Advisor on
Gender Issues and the
Advancement of Women,
UN, daw who-is-at undp.org <mailto:daw@undp.org>
mailto:daw@undp.org <mailto:daw@undp.org>
< mailto: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.
Kind Regards
J=FCrg Binggeli
Atraxis AG
CGM
8058 Zurich-Airport
Phone: +41-1-812 4847
Mobile: +41-79-2057814
Telefax: +41-1-812 9246
Telex: ZRHVUSR
E-Mail: jbinggel who-is-at sairgroup.com
Phil Graham
p.graham who-is-at qut.edu.au
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/index.html