| Status | Not A Hoax | | Comments | The following Internet petition concerning the civil rights of Afghanistan women has been making the rounds and it is true. However, an Internet petition has no validity at all as no signature can be checked or validated. | | Description | This is an actual petition, and
"signatures" will be lost if you drop the line.
Dear Friends,
Please do not ignore this email.
This is something that we as women and
essentially as human beings need to support - I
don't know if this is going to help but take 3 minutes out of
your life to do your part.
Madhu, the government of Afghanistan, is waging a
war upon women. 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 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.
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
must be extraordinarily high: those who cannot
find proper medication and treatment for severe
depression and would rather take their lives than
live in such conditions.
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.
When what little medication that is left finally
runs out, one doctor is considering 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, to dress
generally as they wanted, and to 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 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 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.
DIRECTIONS:
PLEASE COPY this email onto 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!
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