Afghanistan Treatment of Women

********************************************************
This letter is a true reflection of what’s happening
in Afghanistan, but the petition is not being recorded.
For more information see

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/afghani.htm

or http://urbanlegends.miningco.com/library/blafghan.htm
********************************************************

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 inpre-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 infront of
their eyes.

One woman was beaten to DEATH by an angry mob of
fundamentalists for accidentally exposing her armwhile
she was driving. Another was stoned to death fortrying
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 andwriters
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 reliefworkers are
estimating that the suicide rate among women, whocannot
find proper medication and treatment for severedepression and
would rather take their lives than live in suchconditions,
has increased significantly. Homes where a woman ispresent
must have their windows painted so that she can neverbe seenby
outsiders.

They must wear silent shoes so that they are neverheard. Women
live in fear of their lives for the slightestmisbehavior. Because they
cannot work, those without male relatives or husbandsare either
starving to death or begging on the street, even ifthey hold Ph.D.’s.
There are almost no medical facilities available forwomen, and relief
workers, in protest, have mostly left the country,taking medicine,
psychologists, and other things necessary to treat theskyrocketing
level of depression among women.

At one of the rare hospitals for women, a reporterfound still, nearly
lifeless bodies lying motionless on top of beds,wrapped in their burqua,
unwilling to speak, eat or do anything, but are slowlywasting away.
Others have gone mad and were seen crouched incorners, perpetually
rocking or crying, most of them in fear. One doctor isconsidering, when
what
little medication that is left finally runs out,leaving these women in
front of the president’s residence as a form ofpeaceful protest. It is at
the
point where the term ‘human rights violations’ havebecome an
understatement.

Men have the power of life and death over their women
relatives, especially their wives, but an angry mobhas just as much right
to
stone or beat a woman, often to death, for exposing aninch of flesh or
offending them in the slightest way.

David Cornwell has told me that we in the UnitedStates should not
judge the Afghan people for such treatment because itis a ‘cultural
thing’, but this is not even true. Women enjoyedrelative freedom, to
work, dress generally as they wanted, and drive andappear in
public alone until only 1996 — the rapidity of thistransition is the
main reason for the depression and suicide; women whowere once
educators or doctors or were simply used to basichuman freedoms,
are now severely restricted and treated as subhumanin the name of
right-wing fundamentalist Islam. It is not theirtradition or ‘culture’,
but
is alien to them, and it is extreme even for thosecultures where
fundamentalism is the rule. Besides, if we couldexcuse everything on
cultural grounds, then we should not be appalled thatthe Carthaginians
sacrificed their infant children, that little girlsare circumcised in
parts of
Africa, that blacks in the deep south in the 1930′swere lynched,
prohibited
from voting and forced to submit to unjust Jim Crowlaws.

Everyone has a right to a tolerable human existence,
even if they are women in a Muslim country in a partof
the world that Americans do not understand.

If we can threaten military force in Kosovo in the
name of human rights for the sake of ethnic Albanians,
Americans can certainly express peaceful outrage atthe oppression,
murder and injustice committed against women by theTaliban.

STATEMENT: In signing this, we agree that the current treatment
of women in Afghanistan is completely UNACCEPTABLE and deserves
intervention by the United Nations. The current situation overseas
will not be tolerated.

Women’s Rights is not a small issue anywhere, and it is UNACCEPTABLE
for women in 2000 to be treated as subhuman and as so much property.
Equality and human decency is a fundamental RIGHT, not a freedom to be
granted, whether one lives in Afghanistan or elsewhere.

PLEASE COPY this email on to a new message, sign the bottom and
forward it to everyone on your distribution lists. If you receive
this list with more than 300 names on it, please e-mail a copy of it to:
. Even if you decide not to sign,
please be considerate and do not kill the petition. Thank you!

*********************************************************
Here is the official response you woud get if you tried
e-mailing this petition to the e-mail address I removed.
*********************************************************

Please read this message carefully, especially the next two sentences. Do
not reply to this email. Do not forward this email to anyone else. Anyone
who needs a copy, already has one. Do not make things worse. Do not
“help” by forwarding this message to everyone who has corresponded with
you on this subject.

Due to a flood of hundreds of thousands of messages in response to an
unauthorized chain letter, all mail to is being
deleted unread. It will never be a valid email address again. If you have
a personal message for the previous owner of that address, you will need
to find some means other than email to communicate.

was not an organization, but a person who was
totally unprepared for the inevitable consequences of telling thousands of
people to tell fifty of their friends to tell fifty of their friends to
send her email.

It is our sincere hope that the hundreds of thousands of people who
continue to attempt to reply will find a more productive outlet for their
concerns. There are several excellent organizations and individuals doing
real work on the issues raised. Some of them were mentioned in sarabande’s
letter. None of them authorized her actions. We suggest that you contact
them through non-virtual channels to help. They all have web sites with
information and contact points. Unlike sarabande, they can channel your
energy in useful directions. Do not let this incident discourage you.

Please do not forward unverified chain letters, no matter how compelling
they might seem. Propagating chain letters is specifically prohibited by
the terms of service of most Internet service providers; you could lose
your account.

Any replies to this message will be deleted unread. The issue is closed.