Fwd: Talaban Women

["Julie O'Neill" <riding101@hotmail.com>]

This has nothing to do with endurance. Please delete if you wish. With so 
many of us on ride camp that are women I just wanted to pass this on. So 
many things in this world we think have nothing to do with us, but maybe we 
can help our fellow sisters in some small way. We care so much for our 
horses that I know we care about our fellow sisters and brothers. Thanks 
Julie


         Talaban Women
    Date:
         Wed, 12 Jul 2000 15:16:38 -0500
    From:
         Freddie Rae Scott <rmscott@janics.com>

THE TALIBAN'S WAR ON WOMEN

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. 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. 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. There are almost no medical
facilities available for 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 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. 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 subhuman in the name of right-wing
fundamentalist Islam. It is not their tradition or culture, but it 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. If we can threaten military force in Kosovo
in the name of human rights for the sake of ethnic Albanians, citizens
of the world 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 action by the
United Nations and that the current situation overseas will not be
tolerated. Women's Rights is not a small issue anywhere, and it is
UNACCEPTABLE for any human in 2000 to be treated as subhuman and so much
as property. Equality and human decency is a RIGHT not a freedom,
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:
1)  please e-mail a copy of it to: sarabande@brandeis.edu
2)  and PLEASE remove the first 300 names from the copy you e-mail to
your friends.

Even if you decide not to sign, please be considerate and do not kill
the petition. Thank you!

Annabel Clarkson
Secretary and Registrar
Heythrop College, University of London
Kensington Square
London W8 5HQ

Tel:    0171 795 6600 (switchboard)
         0171 795 4203 (direct)
Fax  0171 795 4200
email: a.clarkson@heythrop.ac.uk
website: http://www.heythrop.ac.uk

"SIGNATURES"

1. Jack McKee, Northern Ireland
2. John Lindner, USA
3. Ruth Dillon, USA
4. F. Rae Scott, USA
5. Mary Scott, USA
6. Shirley Baker, UK
7. Bobby Baker, UK

________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com