[nukkad] Human Rights Petition.

[SATHYA KEERTHY R A <ras-ssg@powai.ltindia.com>]

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** Proprietary **
** High Priority **

Human Rights Petition. 

Please spare a minute to read this mail. Thank you.
 
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
havingthe 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 livein 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 neverheard. Women live in fear of their lives for the
slightest misbehavior. Because they cannot work, those
without male relatives or husbands are either starving todeath
 or begging on the street, even if they hold Ph.D.'s. 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 necessaryto
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, perpetuallyrocking 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 said that those in the West 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 sub-human 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 US deep south in the
1930'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 Westerners may
not understand. If we can threaten military force in Kosovo in
the name of human rights for the sake of ethnic Albanians,
then NATO and the West can certainly express peaceful
outrage at the oppression, murder and injustice committed
againstwomen 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
Nations and that the current situation in Afghanistan will not
be tolerated. Women's Rights is not a small issue anywhere
and it is UNACCEPTABLE for women in 1998 to betreated
as sub-human and so much as property. Equality and human
decency is a RIGHT not a freedom, whether one lives in
Afghanistan or anywhere else.

 *****
 
 1) Bruce J. Malina, Omaha, NE
 2) Raymond Hobbs, Hamilton, ON, Canada
 3) Elizabeth Demaray, Kanata, ON, Canada
 4) Fred Demaray, Kanata, ON, Canada
 5) Leslie Penrose, Tulsa, OK
 6) Susan Ross, Perkins, OK
 7) Jeannie Himes, Tulsa, OK
 8) Lois Adams, Tulsa, OK
 9) Mona M. Miller, Fort Collins, CO
 10) Kara A. Sheldon, Colorado Springs, CO
 11) Gay Victoria, Colorado Springs, CO
 12) Catherine Euler, Leeds, UK
 13) Faith Muimo, Leeds, UK
 14) Sanna Vehvil=E4inen, Helsinki, Finland
 15) Jussi Onnismaa, Helsinki. Finland
 16) Marjatta Hahkio, Helsinki, Finland
 17) Jouko Hahkio, Helsinki, Finland
 18) Colin Sydes, Helsinki, Finland
 19) Gavin Cowie, Helsinki, Finland
 20) Andrew Walker, London, UK
 21) Roberto Battista, London, UK
 22) Rob Day, Brighton, UK
 23) Georgia Shields, London, UK
 24) Toby Glover, London, UK
 23) Mark Disley, London, UK
 24)Leila Naaman, London, uk
 25) Rouba HASSAN, Paris, France
 26) Fatm=E9 Sharafeddine Hassan, Houston, Texas, USA
 27) Rekha Srinivasan, Columbus, USA
 28) Anuradha Biswas, Boston, USA
 29) Chandreyee Mittra, Columbus, USA
 30)Jaba Banerjee,Calcutta,India
 31) Chirajeet Sen, Marlborough, MA,USA
 32) Sharad Ghai    Dallas, TX, USA
 33)Supurna Ghosh Chicago, IL, USA
 34) Usree Bandyopadhyay, Tucson, AZ, USA
 35) Arti Arora, Tucson, AZ, USA
 36) Lata Venkataraman  -Mumbai-India
 37) Madhuri Singh - Mumbai - India
 38) Deborah Zuzarte - Mumbai, India
 39) Dr.Shiv-Kumar Poojari-Mumbai, India
 40) Hima Bindu Sringaram - Hyderabad, India
 41) MuthuRajan .B -Hyd,India.
 42) Ramesh Chandolu - Hyderabad, India
 43)Mohana Murali Krishna - Bangalore, India
 44)Padmalatha R - Bangalore, India
 45)Sathya Keerthy.R - Mysore, India.

 ********
Please sign to support, and include your town and country.
Then copy and e-mail to as many people as possible. If you
receive this  list with more than 50 names on it, please
e-mail a copy of it to:

 Mary Robinson
 High Commissioner,
 UNHCHR,
 webadmin.hchr@unorg.ch
 and to:
 Angela King,
 Special Advisor on Gender Issues and the Advancement of
Women, UN, daw@undp.org

 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.



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