Saturday, July 20, 2013

Well, That Didn't Take Long...Part of Afghanistan Returns To Total Repression of Women

The years before the War in Afghanistan will live in infamy in regards to women's rights when the Taliban ruled the nation's females with an iron fist, and now, with the pull out of American and NATO forces already beginning to some extent, the past is coming back stronger than ever in parts of Afghanistan.

From the article at The Long War Journal:


Deh Salah, near Panjshir, was a bastion of anti-Taliban sentiment prior to the ousting of the austere Islamist government by the US-backed Northern Alliance in 2001.

But the eight article decree, issued late in June, bars women from leaving home without a male relative, while shutting cosmetic shops on the pretext they were being used for prostitution — an accusation residents and police reject.

I just don't know what Barack Hussein Obama is thinking - he had to know this would happen in Afghanistan....it's almost like he's conducting a new "war on women."


Taliban-style edict for women spreads alarm in Afghan district


KABUL/DEH SALAH: One of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's main religious advisers will not overturn a decree issued by clerics in the north re-imposing Taliban-style curbs on women, in another sign of returning conservatism as Nato forces leave the country.

Just days after the United States launched a $200 million program to boost the role of women in Afghanistan, a senior member of the country's top religious leaders' panel said he would not intervene over a draconian edict issued by clerics in the Deh Salah region of Baghlan province.

Deh Salah, near Panjshir, was a bastion of anti-Taliban sentiment prior to the ousting of the austere Islamist government by the US-backed Northern Alliance in 2001.

But the eight article decree, issued late in June, bars women from leaving home without a male relative, while shutting cosmetic shops on the pretext they were being used for prostitution — an accusation residents and police reject.

“There is no way these shops could have stayed open. Shops are for business, not adultery,” Enayatullah Baligh, a member of the top religious panel, the Ulema Council, and an adviser to the president, told Reuters late on Friday.

Residents of Deh Salah described the order as a “fatwa”, or religious edict, although only senior clerics in Kabul should issue such a binding religious order.

But underscoring opposition to the edict, a mayor was shot dead by a teenaged shop owner while trying to enforce the order, which also barred women from clinics without a male escort, threatening unspecified “punishments” if they disobeyed.

Afghanistan has one of the world's highest infant mortality rates and more than a decade after the US-backed toppling of the Taliban, it still ranks as one of the worst nations to be born a girl.

Under Taliban rule from 1996 until 2001, women were forced to wear the head-to-toe covering burqa and sometimes had fingers cut off for wearing nail varnish.

The decree, signed by a conservative cleric in the area named Zmarai, contained a warning of holy war if authorities tried to block it: “If officials do react to our demands, we will start a jihad.”

There is growing fear among many people in Afghanistan that the withdrawal of Nato-led forces and efforts to reach a political agreement with the Taliban to end the 12-year-old war could undermine hard-won freedoms for women.

“Like the Taliban again”

In the deeply conservative, male-dominated country where religion often holds more sway than legal authority, religious leaders have often been a major barrier to women obtaining the rights granted to them under the constitution.

In Deh Salah, home to about 80,000 people, most of them ethnic Tajiks rather that the majority Pashtuns, the main community from which the Taliban draw support, a cosmetic shop owner named Abdullah stood before his business — now hidden behind plywood sheeting — and said clerics were increasingly flexing their muscles.

2 comments:

Findalis said...

I really don't give a damn about the people of Afghanistan anymore. In these areas the men welcome the Taliban with open arms, they attack our troops and we can't fire upon them. Let them all go to hell. That is the best place for any Muslim any how.

Anonymous said...

we cant blame teh Taliban for teh rules of engagement that Obama teh appeaser and Muslim lover had put in place. Perhapos his secret service should have teh same rules of engagement fair play and all. Karzai is corrupt and complained about teh deaths of innicent civilans yet says nothing when teh taliban do it.

America and other troops should get out this second and leave that karzai bastard twisting in teh wind. He is useless, corrupt and duplicitous. Fuck him and fuck Afghanistan and teh people there. They get the government they elect or not