I just received an email petition (usually I just trash them because so many are bogus) and wanted to check some facts. Here is an excerpt:
“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…<snip> 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…<snip>”
Amnesty International has information about human rights violations in regard to treatment of women under the Taliban, but I have not been able to find confirmation of specific examples of women being stoned to death or otherwise murdered. I would appreciate any links to news stories, etc. so that I might pass the information along to previous recipients of this email. (I also intend to check out the original sender and to try to find out to whom this “petition” is to be sent.) Any verification or additional information would be appreciated.
Ackk! Jack checked Snopes for me before I posted this thread, but I guess he used the wrong search terms and missed it. Thanks, beatle!
Now, I have a decision to make. I usually counter all the bogus emails I get with the appropriate links and reply to all previous recipients (the last one was "Touched by an Angel to be cancelled due to references to God). However, since this issue is real and only the petition is fake, I don’t know if I should discourage people by sending a correction. Any thoughts?
I would not forward the petition email, as that is a blackhole, so to speak. While the unenviable position of women under the so-called “fundamentalist” Muslim governments is hardly new news, should you care to repeat and amplify the message describing their plight, I’d suggest (researching and) writing up your own summary of the situation. You must fathom out what, besides having people attach their names to and forwarding a useless email petition, you would advise people to do. If you are in the U.S., you can advise people to make noises to their elected representatives, bother - in whatever way they can - the Taliban or get radical and do the old chador/smuggled UZI thing and get up front and personal about it.
There may be other alternatives - a media campaign perhaps - but the email needs to go to the trash.
The hellish suffering of women in Afghanistan under the Taliban is very well documented and publicized. It is a staggering crime and is even worse than described in that email “petition”. They are essentially deprived of any medical care - only woman doctors can treat women but women canot work - “that’s some catch that catch-22”.
When a friend sent me that email a year ago I chewed them out. This is an Islamic problem and must be dealt with by the Islamic world. There is little point to the Christian west trying to get involved in this. The Islamic world does not want our interference. Rest assured that our political leaders are well aware of the Taliban’s excesses and their economy based on opium growing and smuggling. Also rest assured that Russia, in its defense pacts with the central Asian moslem states, is building military force to the north of the Taliban. Russia will not enter Afghanistan again, but people are fighting and dying in a Central Asian resistance against the Taliban right now. Politically this is the hottest part of the world right now and there is going to be more and more serious fighting in central Asia.
No regime that is as primitive and cruel as the Taliban can last for very long. Did you know that all windows in houses in Afghanistan must be painted over so that a passerby cannot glimpse a woman inside a house? All printed matter is banned because it might contain recycled paper that may have been part of a Khoran, the holy book. These guys are bone-ignorant savages. There is a holocaust going on against their female population and an email petition is ridiculous and naive.
Here’s a link to English language news from Russia. Visit here regularly if you wish to follow the violent politics of central Asia, very little of which makes it into North American newspapers. For example, large bands of heavily armed Islamic extremists, backed by the Taliban, are building up in Turkmenistan, which has a weak dictator, and they are always trying to sneak over into Uzbekistan. Generally they get slaughtered to the last man. Did you know U.S. ground forces participated in war games there recently? Did you know the U.S. pumps hundreds of millions, if not billions, into those central Asian republics to keep them out of the radical Islamic camp?
This is a good news link to follow the fighting against the Taliban and the twisted politics of Central Asia. Jump in there now and read about the U.S. criminal investigation of a filthy rich American oil tycoon in Central Asia.