Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 13:15:47 -0800 From: "Chris Hind" <chind@hotmail.com> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg1192$foo@default> Subject: Fw: Please read and sign
----- Original Message -----
To: Andy Enomoto <pdance19@idt.net>; Aunt Nanci <Nano3333@aol.com>; Aylene
Quale <ayquale@du.edu>; Brad Rybarczyk <br@dana.ucc.nau.edu>; Brent Bystedt
<bcb9@dana.ucc.nau.edu>; Bryan Casey <shrmprdan@aol.com>; Chachi
<ChachiMSR@aol.com>; Chris Hind <chind@hotmail.com>; Dora S
<dora_s@hotmail.com>; Douglas Cowie <cowie_ds@email.msn.com>; Edgard Aguilar
<edgard@cnmnetwork.com>; Glenn Jordan <WranglrMSR@aol.com>; Glenn Moss
<jaybee9@aol.com>; Gretchen <gmwyly@aol.com>; Harold Underwood
<wile_e@pacbell.net>; Heather Green <hlgreen@hotmail.com>; Highlander
<Highlander@12-bradda.freeserve.co.uk>; IsleBthere <isle_b_there@yahoo.com>;
Jason Matthews <jason.matthews@ketchum.com>; Jeff Kelly <jkelley@ctos.com>;
Jenn Hodges <hodges_jennifer@yahoo.com>; Joe Capraro <capraro@home.com>; Joe
Holliday <jolliday@aol.com>; Joseph Cannon <j.f.cannon@att.net>; julie
<LITTL66763
Sent: Friday, April 02, 1999 10:49 AM
> The government of Afghanistan is waging a war upon women. The situation
> is getting so bad that one person in an editorial in 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 misbehavior.
>
> Because they cannot work, those without male relatives or husbands are
> either starving to death or begging on the street. There are almost no
> medical facilities available for women, and relief workers, in protest,
> have mostly left the country, taking medicine and psychologists and
> other things necessary to treat the sky-rocketing level of depression
> among 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
> 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
> told me that we in the United States 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 subhuman 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 deep south in the1930'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 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 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 support and
> action by the people of the United States and the U.S. Government (and
> other people and governments) and that the current situation overseas
> will not be tolerated.
>
> Women's Rights are not a small issue anywhere and it is UNACCEPTABLE for
> women in 1999 to be treated as subhuman and as so much property.
> Equality and human decency is a RIGHT not a freedom, whether one lives
> in Afghanistan or the United States.
>
> *****
>
> 1) Leslie London, Cape Town, South Africa
> 2) Tim Holtz, Boston, MA
> 3) Joyce Millen, Cambridge, MA
> 4) Diane Millen, Falls Church, Va.
> 5) Bill Millen, Falls Church, Va.
> 6) Milt Eisner, McLean VA
> 7) Harriet Solomon, Springfield, VA
> 8) Arlene Silikovitz, West Orange, NJ
> 9) Susanna Levin, New Rochelle, NY
> 10) Ruth Slater, New Rochelle,NY
> 11) Elisabeth Keane, Westport, CT
> 12) Mercedes Lopez-Morgan, Chappaqua, NY
> 13) Pete Morgan, Chappaqua, NY
> 14) Aaron Cela, Chappaqua, NY
> 15) Michelle Lee, San Francisco, CA
> 16) Karen Muiter, San Mateo, CA
> 17) Nate Walker, North Hills, CA
> 18) Jasmyn Hatam San Jose, CA
> 19) Brigette Young, Los Angeles, CA
> 20) Rebecca Kniss, Chico, CA
> 21) Sarah Hayman, Whittier, CA
> 22) Kendra Dole-Stoll, Salem, OR
> 23) Robert L. Tolar, Portland, OR
> 24) Lisa Cramer, Providence, RI
> 25) Kristi Rudelius-Palmer, Minneapolis, MN
> 26) Charmaine Crockett, Brooklyn, New York
> 27) Anne Hemenway, New York, New York
> 28) Ned Rothenberg. Brooklyn, NY
> 29) Dave Malham, York, England
> 30) Nick Hull-Malham, London. England
> 31) Bob Hallewell, London, England
> 32) Mariette Castellino, London, England
> 33) Steve Bullock, London, England
> 34) Kris Hibbert, London, England
> 35) Wendy Thomson, London, England
> 36) Mollie Bickerstaff, London, England
> 37) Marya Burgess, London, England
> 38) Robin Burgess, Stirling, Scotland
> 39) Rosie Shannon, Stirling Scotland
> 40) Jane Connechen, Stirling, Scotland
> 41) Ailsa Cook, Edinburgh, Scotland
> 42) Vanessa Conway, Edinburgh, Scotland
> 43) Kate Neligan, Dublin, Ireland
> 44) Will Shand, London, England
> 45) David Raymond, London, England
> 46) Sam Gordon, London, England
> 47) Tamsin Davies, London, England
> 48) Jason Creighton, London, England
> 49) Gail Creighton, Dublin, Ireland
> 50) Ken Gummerson, Dublin, Ireland
> 51) Tony Gummerson , Ireland
> 52) Colm Arrundel, Dublin, Ireland
> 53) Fiona McKeowan , Dublin, Ireland
> 54) Christina Gaughran, Dublin, Ireland
> 55) Christine Quinn, Limerick, Ireland
> 56) Yvonne King, Limerick , Ireland.
> 57)Rosemary Brown, Limerick,Ireland.
> 58)Jennifer Keane,Limerick,Ireland.
> 59) Lorraine Whelan, Limerick, Ireland
> 60) Sandra Grehan, Limerick, Ireland
> 61) Callista Bennis, Limerick, Ireland
> 62) B. Andreosso-O'Callaghan, Limerick, Ireland
> 63) Vladimir Benacek, Czechia
> 64) Stepana Lazarova, London, England
> 65) Cristina Sanane. London, England
> 67) Carolina Carson, Colon, Panama
> 66) Josette Hatfield, Colon, Panama
> 68) Donald C. Pierpoint, Sta. Rita, Sabanitas, Colon, Panama
> 69) Coral Adema, Kerrville, TX
> 70) Veronica Pitman, Ingram, TX
> 71) Joyce Johnson, Evergreen, CO
> 72) Rosie Roegner, Dripping Springs, TX
> 73) Sallie Delahoussaye, Austin, TX
> 74) Nina Rach, Houston, Texas
> 75) Susan S. Swingholm, Houston, Texas
> 76) Ellen Thomson, Spring, Texas
> 77) Clare Santana, Houston, Texas
> 78) Ruth Rathbun, Houston, Texas
> 79) Eileen Maloney, Washington D.C.
> 80) Darcie L. Murray, Houston, TX
> 81) Monica Wood, Los Angeles, CA
> 82) Lauren Reinhold, Roeland Park, KS
> 83) Renee Duenow, Saint Louis, MO
> 84) Jennifer Furey, Saint Louis, MO
> 85) Trish Fike, Baltimore, MD, USA
> 86) Erin Micklo, Oak Park, IL USA
> 87) Kevin Micklo, Oak Park, IL USA
> 88) Maggie Micklo, Oak Park, IL USA
> 89) Caroline Monahan, Holland, MI
> 90) Michelle Williams, Lewistown, MT
> 91) Linda Richmer, Greenville, IN
> 92) Kelly Stamper, San Diego, CA
> 93) Mark East IV, San Diego, CA
> 94) Ken Dow, San Diego, CA
> 95) Angelic Willis, San Diego, CA
> 96) Nakissa Etemad, San Diego, CA
> 97) Gilda Noori, Redondo Beach, CA
> 98) Robert Kelleher, Redondo Beach, CA
> 99) Chris Hind, Redondo Beach, CA
>
> **** Please sign to support, and include your town. Then copy
> and e-mail to as many people as possible. If you receive this
> list with more than 150 names on it, please e-mail a copy of it
> to:
>
> sarabande@brandeis.edu
>
> 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.
>
> Melissa Buckheit
> Brandeis University
>
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