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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Pilot:
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 20:21:25 +1000
From: "Paul Kovac" <pkay@f1dot net.au>
To: "Paul Kovac" <pkay@f1dot net.au>

Please take the time to read the following.

AFGHANISTAN

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 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 gainst 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) 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) Khushbinder Mark, London, England
16) David Mark, London, England
17) Clare McGuinness, London, England
18) Anne-Lise Mesnard, London, England
19) Monica Wolff,London,England
20) Alex Jenkins, Wales, UK.
21) Philip Lee, Wales, UK.
22) Wai Yee Law, Surrey, England
23) Rob Coke, Nottingham, England
24) Simon Sankarayya, England
25) Daljit Singh, London, UK
26) Toby Evetts, London, UK
27) Rebecca Kingman, London, UK
28) Emma Trotman, London UK
29) Paul Newman, London, UK
30) Philippa Davies, London, UK
31) Lucianne Holt, London, UK
32) Alka Shingadia, London, UK
33) Mairi Macleod, Dubai, U.A.E.
34) Chris May, U.A.E.
35) Trish Dodds, Oman
36) T. Beale, Melbourne, Australia
37) A. Gallo, Melbourne, Australia
38) Angelo Campagna, Australia
39) Adam Cosier, Australia
40) Anusha Sakthi, Australia
41) Miranda Phua, Melbourne, Australia
42) Andy Knights, London, England
43) Natalie Gould, London, England
44) Tessa Darbourne, London, England
45) Katy MacKay, London, England
46) Sasha de Silva, Melbourne, Australia
47) Kylie Hicks, Melbourne, Australia
48) Sascha Grant, Melbourne, Australia
49) Paul Kovac, Sydney, 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@un.org

and to:

Angela King,
Special Advisor on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women,
UN,
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.
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