I thought the following article was a great read. It really hit me as I was reading it to know what these women were going through. It also helped me further my resolve to stand against mindless bombing of Afghanistan to prove a point as several people in the US seem to want to do. Another thing it opened my eyes to was the fact that once again, Islam is not the enemy and Afghani residents are not necessarily the enemy. The enemies are Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and terrorism. All I have to say is put yourself in the shoes of the women in this article and you'll understand that bravery and guts aren't necessarily found via the bullet, but via the heart and mind. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/topstory2/1077022 ----------------------------------------------- Oct. 7, 2001, 1:37AM Afghan women fight for rights A 2,000-member organization is devoted to helping women subjected to alleged Taliban atrocities By NATASHA MANN PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- The young woman looks like an unlikely public enemy of Afghanistan's Taliban regime. She has shed the heavy, all-encompassing burqa that women in her native Afghanistan are required to wear and has donned the female attire common in Pakistani cities -- a calf-length shirt over loose trousers and a light, gauzy head scarf called a dupatta. But as an exiled Afghan working for the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, an underground network known as RAWA, she risks her life daily, the 21-year-old says. The 2,000-member, all-female organization is devoted to fighting for the rights of Afghan women and exposing what it sees as Taliban atrocities. "It is more dangerous now," says the young woman who, fearing for her safety, gives her name only as Marina. "It is an uncertain situation," Marina says about the volatile climate in Peshawar, the dusty, frontier city in northern Pakistan, a hot spot for fierce anti-American protests by Islamic militants. "And with such a high number of (Afghan) refugees, you cannot screen everyone. You could be talking to anyone." RAWA represents everything that the fundamentalist Taliban regime hates. Founded in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1977 as a feminist organization, RAWA began exposing excesses committed by warring factions that arose after the collapse of the Soviet-backed regime in 1992 and then by the Taliban, which seized power in Kabul in 1996. Members of RAWA live among Afghan exiles in Pakistan and inside Afghanistan. Many are from the educated elite, but others are from poor villages. Their group is funded by donations from the United States and Europe and projects such as carpet-making. Since taking over most of Afghanistan, the Taliban have issued edicts restricting freedoms for both men and women. Women have been forced to wear head-to-toe burqas, and those stepping outside their homes without one have been beaten with whips. The Taliban have shut down schools for girls and forbidden women from working. The regime has banned makeup, music, dancing and other recreational activities, sometimes using executions and hand or foot amputations as punishment. In Afghanistan, RAWA members have hidden video cameras beneath their burqas and filmed floggings and executions. The group's Web site and magazine carry reports and pictures of abuses. RAWA has established more than 100 secret home-based schools for girls in Afghanistan, its members say. The group also has set up literacy classes and health programs for women. The organization's Web site declares: "If you are freedom-loving and anti-fundamentalist, you are with RAWA." "They consider us infidels, prostitutes and anti-Islamic," Marina says of militant Islamic organizations. "The fundamentalists have influence in all fields. There are people in the police and among journalists. Many are trying to find out who we are." Marina and her mother, a teacher who once helped RAWA, fled Afghanistan in 1988 and now live in a house in Peshawar. RAWA members working among Afghan refugees in the Pakistani city of 2 million have established 24 home-based schools and literacy classes for people too poor to pay for their own educations. Calling themselves social workers, they have set up embroidery and carpet-weaving centers to help women in refugee camps earn a little income. In Pakistan, RAWA members suspect their phones are tapped and say they are often followed. Marina alternates the kind of transportation she uses and changes her style of dress. She deliberately does not know the home telephone numbers or addresses of RAWA members. Radio Sharia, the Taliban's official radio station, has issued fatwahs, or religious decrees, against the "infidel women." "They have issued a decree that the punishment would be stoning to death if any RAWA member is caught," says member Saha. "We are the people who expose the crimes in any possible way," adds Fatima, a RAWA activist. "We have to accept the risk as part of what we do." Despite the personal dangers, RAWA members believe in being vocal about the plight of the Afghan people and have occasionally held demonstrations in Pakistan. Two years ago, Marina was stoned by fundamentalists at a RAWA rally in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. "I was frightened then," she says. "It was like rain, but it was stones, great big stones." RAWA members say some Afghan refugees who recently arrived in Peshawar have contacted them for help. The organization has distributed oil, flour, rice and medicine to refugees in a camp 10 miles south of the city. Although the Pakistani government won't allow new Afghan refugees into the country, some slip across the porous border. The latest refugees to arrive, RAWA members say, fear both the Taliban and a U.S. attack on their country, where Osama bin Laden, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, is believed to be hiding. "The Taliban want the men as soldiers, and a lot are escaping because of their young boys and sons," Fatima says. "No one in Afghanistan is prepared for war. Everyone is tired, and they don't want to join these criminals in the so-called holy jihad." Some, she adds, "are happy that maybe through the U.S., the Taliban can be eliminated."
I'm not sure if the following has been posted before, but the following link shows some of the video captured by women in the RAWA. They are apparently using hidden video cameras as the article above says. I think Oprah may have had a show about this as well. NOTE : Some of these videos are EXTREMELY graphic. If you're squeamish, don't view them. RAWA Site (it will re-direct you) Videos
I saw some footage of a woman whose veil accidentally slipped halfway off her face in public, and before she could recover it there was a Taliban vice "policeman" with a club beating the everliving sh*t out of the poor woman, right there in the middle of the street... Any bombing will be anything but mindless, DoD; I am willing to bet that the Taliban ends up killing more Afghani civilians in this war than we do. Of course, much of the Taliban is not even Afghani, and they have no compunctions about killing Afghanis... The vast majority of US items airdropped on civilians will be food packages. We'll save the high explosive for known terrorist sites, AD sites, tanks, etc.
Excellent thread Dr. of Dunk. I had just discovered on another site the importance of the RAWA to constructing a post war Afghanistan that civilized people would be proud of. Unfortunately my recent research has shown that the Northern Alliance is also composed of fundamentalist and civil rights abusers who are not much differnent than the Taliban when it comes to women's rights, despite recent self serving statements to the contrary. The human rights record of the Northern Alliance:http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/asia/afghan-bck1005.htm Another article about the importance of the Revoloutionary Women group[ in Afganistan. http://thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011022&s=pollitt
I hope our action to rid the world of the Taliban improves the lives of these women and their children. These pictures make me cry. I have faith that there will be justice.
Such unbelievable and capricious cruelty is just about beyond comprehension. Anyone who would stand with the Taliban is truly demented. They can't be extinguished quickly enough! I can't help but wonder what "crime" that poor woman committed to deserve a rifle shot through her <B>still-veiled</B> head or that poor guy committed to ceremoniously have his throat cut and his blood soaked up by the dusty ground. This is a great opportunity for the US to make another friend in the Middle East. Rout out these murderous thugs and re-build Afghanistan. Those poor people deserve it for their decades of suffering. We get criticized for having abandoned them when the Russians left. They were left to their own factional devices. This time, let's stay on until they are stable. No doubt we will be criticized for being colonial. There is always a steep price for exhibiting leadership, I guess.
http://www.rawa.org/murder-w.htm KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Thousands of people watched as a woman, cowering beneath a pale blue all-enveloping burqa, was shot and killed today in the first public execution of a woman in Kabul since the Taliban religious army took control three years ago. The woman, identified only as Zarmeena, a mother of seven children, was found guilty of beating her husband to death with a steel hammer as he slept. The reason for the killing two years ago was a family dispute," according to a Taliban soldier, who didn't give his name. Zarmeena was taken from the back of a pickup truck that drove into the sports stadium. Two female police officers, both in deep blue burqas, held Zarmeena's arms. Witnesses said the convicted woman walked slowly, each step followed by a pause. When she reached the center of the field she was ordered by one of the women to sit. Behind her a young Taliban soldier, his head wrapped in the traditional turban, took aim with his Kalashnikov rifle. But suddenly Zarmeena stood up and tried to flee. A policewoman stopped her and forced her to sit, said witnesses. The Taliban soldier moved closer and shot her three times. Afterward from the crowd several people shouted "God is great." The stadium was packed with men and women, many of whom had brought their children. One woman in a burqa, who did not give her name, but was running quickly toward the stadium seats pushing her small children ahead of her, said: "This is the first time a woman has been killed. I wanted to see." Radio Shariat on Monday announced that there would be a public execution. The Taliban have imposed their harsh brand of Islamic law in the 90 percent of Afghanistan under their control. The Taliban say their version of Islam is a pure one that follows a literal interpretation of the Muslim holy book, The Koran. Under Taliban laws, murderers are publicly executed by the relatives of their victims. Adulterers are stoned to death and the limbs of thieves are amputated. Lesser crimes are punished by public beatings. Mohammed Wazay, who was collecting wood outside the stadium said that the woman, whose identity was not released on radio, "deserved to die because she must have killed her husband while he was sleeping, otherwise it's not possible."
BGM: I found it interesting that when a senior Taliban spokesman was asked why they used that stadium for public executions and not for football (soccer), his reply was "Well, if the international community would give us the money to build a facility for those executions, then we'd be able to get a football game together"... These are the type of people we're dealing with.
I have to admit that her crime is more serious than I would have guessed, but I still have my doubts about the veracity of the charges (for OUR consumption) and the fairness of her trial. The sheer brutality is beyond question.
