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 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, 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 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

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 deep south in the 1930's

were lynched, prohibited from voting, and forced to submit to unjust Jim

Crow laws.

We 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 that

the current situation overseas will not be tolerated. Women's Rights is

not a small issue anywhere and it is UNACCEPTABLE for women in 1998

to be treated as sub-human and so much as property. Equality and

human decency is a RIGHT not a freedom, whether one lives in

Afghanistan or the United States.

*****

1) Bruce J. Malina, Omaha, NE

2) Santiago Guijarro, Salamanca (Spain)

3) Carlos Del Valle, Madrid (Spain)

4) Pardo Fornaciari, Livorno, (Italy)

5) Sergio Morra, Genova (Italy)

6) Carlo Dapueto, Genova (Italy)

7) Lucilla Cannizzaro, Roma (Italy)

8) Silvia Di Giacomo, Roma (Italy)

**** 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 50 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.