Noam Chomsky denounces Taliban oppresion~!!!!!
Actually, he hasn't and never will. However, someone has:
The TALIBAN beat and kill women in Afghanistan
(Please sign the following petition)
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
restricted to 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 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 because those who cannot find proper medication and treatment for severe depression 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 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 in 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.. |
