Freedom or more Punishment?

This Article was written by Noorjahan Akbar, Co-Founder and Member of Young Woman for Change (YWC), she gave me the honor of publishing this on my blog. if you would like to visit YWC's Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/YWC.af) and the website is www.youngwomenforchange.org

Thank you Ms. Noorjahan Akbar.

Gulnaz's issue is sensitive and heartbreaking. she is one of the victims of the shortcomings of the Afghan Government.
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In the documentary, In-Justice, the twenty-one year old Gulnaz speaks about how she was savagely raped by her cousin’s husband after he tied her hands and feet and held her mouth shut. She was impregnated and she reported the rape. Instead of being rewarded with justice for being brave enough to speaking about an issue so taboo, she was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment after the rapist’s family paid the prosecutor and the judge. Her sentence was later decreased to three years and included the phrase that she would marry her rapist after her sentence ends. 

The European Union commissioned the production of In-Justice, but later decided to not allow its screenings supposedly because of the security of the subjects. However a EU official sent out an email to the filmmakers that contained a suggestion that there was real fear that publicizing the movie could create problems with the Afghan government. In the documentary, clearly understanding the need to break the silence, Gulnaz says, “ I am happy if the documentary is on TV. I want the government to see it. I want the entire Afghan people to see it.” The Afghan judicial officials violated Gulnaz’s right to justice and her wish to be heard was ignored by the European Union.

The documentary was silenced but a group of activists followed up with Gulnaz’s case. A petition was created and signed by 5,000 people in a matter of a week demanding the freedom of Gulnaz. President Karzai called a high-level judiciary meeting to discuss Gulnaz’s case. There were high hopes that the meeting would lead to the freedom and safety of Gulnaz, however what followed was acutely disappointing.

President Karzai “pardoned” Gulnaz for committing no crime, for being raped and imprisoned, for being humiliated and threatened and for raising her voice for justice. He also declared, after the meeting, that Gulnaz had the right to make the decision to stay in jail or not, and hence indirectly made it clear that she was safe only in prison and if she exited, it would be her decision and she would suffer the consequences. In addition to that, he asked the Minister of Justice to meet with Gulnaz and the rapist to figure out whether she wants to marry him to legitimize her daughter. This is while Gulnaz fears her rapist’s family and relative. The rapist’s wife has already threatened Gulnaz that she will kill Gulnaz and her daughter and his family has made it clear that they will never forgive her and her daughter for the so-called dishonor she has brought them. Through the arrangement by the President, Gulnaz was given two choices, to marry her rapist or stay in prison with her daughter.

Although the pardon did not officially include her marriage, but the president's action and their push for the marriage, made it part of the pardon unofficially.

Pressured by her rapist’s family to preserve their son’s so-called honor and now the President and Minister of Justice, Gulnaz has agreed to marry her rapist, but the real question is how much of this is really a choice. The rapist's family went as far as giving their daughter to Gulnaz's brother to make sure she will marry their son and come to their house. One more victim of the Rapist’s crime, the sister did not commit a crime nor was part of it but has to now be sacrificed for the crime her brother committed. If she is not legitimized, Gulnaz’s daughter will be ostracized by the society, she will not be able to get a national ID because the national ID requires the father’s background, and hence she will never be able to get a credible high school education or a diploma and she will never be able to work legitimately at any governmental organization, but her legitimization comes with a price to her mother. Gulnaz will wake up beside the man who raped her, caused her imprisonment and threatened to kill her and destroy her body if she spoke about the rape if she is not killed after being freed from prison. In either case, the rapist will still be free and have a wife and a life, and his crimes will be left unpunished. However, if Gulnaz marries him, he will be rewarded for raping a woman. 

Gulnaz’s story points out to several greave problems with the Government of Afghanistan and the judiciary system. Starting with the corruption that lead to her imprisonment and ending with her being married to the man who raped her are all examples of how the government is not much better than the tribal courts that ordered for Aisha’s nose to be cut of. Gulnaz is not losing her ears or nose, but she is losing her freedom forever by being married to her rapist, if she is not killed when she arrives her probably-future-husband’s house. If she is murdered, her case will be forgotten like the poet, Nadia Anjuman, and hundreds of other women’s who have been killed for an ambiguous and male-oriented “honor” and she will be blamed for it because she was given a “choice” to stay in prison, to be “safe.” There is little doubt that the same man will not rape her again if she is married to him and at his disposal. Also, who knows if her daughter will be safe from the man?

There are alternatives to this injustice, alternatives that the President and the Minister of Justice apparently doesn’t see. There are several shelters in Kabul, which contradictory to the lies and rumors spread about them, provide safety to women like Gulnaz. For example, Sabera, 18, is now living in a shelter in Kabul after she fled a forced marriage to a 52-year-old abusive man. There are hundreds of women like Sabera who are learning to read and write and make crafts in a hidden shelter somewhere in Afghanistan. They are being re-integrated into the society slowly and given means of economic stability. Gulnaz could have been given this alternative, rather than the choices of remaining in prison or marrying the man who raped her. If for some reason none of the shelters, were deemed as safe as her rapist’s house for Gulnaz by the President, he could easily arrange for her to seek asylum out of the country.

The big picture of Gulnaz’s case is that if she is married to her rapist, in addition to the fact that her freedom and safety will be gone, her case will reaffirm and legitimize the backwards and misogynist practice of marrying women to their rapists in Afghanistan and perpetuate the unjust belief that rape is not about the violation of a woman’s rights and dignity, but a matter of family honor and to preserve the family honor, one better do what the President and many others in the country suggest.

If Gulnaz is married to her rapist, if she consents to it because she is provided no other alternative, it will be a message to other violators of women’s rights and rapists. The clear message is: “Rape. The President will make sure you will marry the woman after she is impregnated and imprisoned. It will even save you a lot of money given you won’t have to pay for marriage costs!”

Noorjahan Akbar

The Cold-blooded murder of an Innocent women once again!

In a country where woman have no say at all in what happens and are constantly harassed, stoned, beaten, abused, basically not considered as humans and are there just for the slave work of her husband’s and his family’s household.

Masooma Haidari (i apologize for getting the name wrong), a 19-year-old girl who was teaching at Sayeed-ush Shuhada high school in Qala-e Muhib area, Dasht-e barchi, district 13 of Kabul city, was walking back from Katib University, located in Dasht-e Barchi towards her home after 07:30pm on the night of 23^rd November 2011, when men (number unknown) attacked her. They tackled her, beat her and than when she finally didn’t let up, they stabbed her in the back. Her books were scattered, bag thrown, and glasses broken. She staggered all the way home; the place of incident from her home is not more than 700 meters away. Taken to the hospital and died there.

She lived with her 3 brothers and her mother. Her father died long ago. When he died, she clung to her mother, cried and begged for her not to leave them behind (not to die too). Her mother today was shocked, so shocked that she could not even cry. She was looking at her daughter while other woman were washing her (an Islamic ritual done to every individual before they are put to grave) and saying “look, she took the promise from me that I will never leave but instead she left me”.

The murder was reported to the district 13 police, they have told the family and the Wakil (representative and in-charge of the area) of the area that they will look into capturing the murderers. But I have little faith in the Police forces of Afghanistan. They do not care about this or any other cases that are stacked in their offices. All the Afghan Government and their Police forces do care about is how to rob people, how to take bribes and how to fill their own pockets with money.

If they cared about the society and the Afghan population and the slogans of “woman’s rights”, they would do something about it.

Certain people in Afghanistan who are the children of powerful warlords of yesterday and so-called leaders of today, are going shopping in Dubai and EU countries spending the nations money while people in Afghanistan die of poverty, lack of health services and insecurity.

They don’t care because in their little bubble of security they feel the safest and have the best lives.

10 years into the process and no work has been done for the betterment of woman’s lives in this country. We do have a symbolic Ministry of Woman’s Affair, but they don’t do anything at all.

Women burn themselves for so many reasons in Afghanistan. They do not trust the Afghan Government Justice system because the system has done nothing for them in the past and will do nothing for them in the future if it goes on like this. Burning and/or killing themselves is the last straw they use to get out of this miserable life because they have no other choice. They know if they escape, they will be caught and sent back to the same village to only be either beaten or stoned to death.

Honestly I don’t have a conclusion for this because the conclusion was her death. If the Afghan Police does not arrest the individuals responsible for this brutal act of murder, there soon will be more and more woman have to suffer because men in Afghanistan think they are superior and they can get away with anything they do.

Civil rights organizations in Afghanistan are active, but there is little they can do. Warlords and power hungry leaders of Afghanistan do not let them do anything.

One of these Organizations, which I have been privileged to be a volunteer member of for a while now, brings in new hope.

Young Woman for Change (YWC) is an Afghan feminist Organization fighting for woman’s rights in a society where little has been done.

YWC since its establishment in early 2011 has done a lot. They have organized protests against street harassment of woman in Kabul. They have organized lectures and conferences of awareness against abuse, and harassment at work place.

I now as a volunteer for a woman’s rights organization can proudly say that we are fighting to bring the other %50 of the Population to the table. Make people realize that unless we share the ground with them, work with them for improving this country and give them a place of existence in this society, we will never be a developed country and we will never have a hope for the future.

We are fighting to stop other Masooma's from getting killed just because they expressed their existence in the society!   

Don't the Parliament of Afghanistan have more shit to worry about than Scaring kids?

It has been more than a year since the Parliamentarians have been seated into the house but due to accusations of fraud, out of the 62 Parliamentarians who were outed from their posts only 8 were replaced by new members. these 8 were seated into the house by presence of heavy police around the house not to let in the 8 members of the parliament banded from the house by the special commission which was formed out of the Afghan High court with orders from Mr. Karzai, the President of Afghanistan.
The Alliance to support Law, a newly formed alliance by members of Parliament to oppose Karzai's decision are still not appearing at the Parliament in protest to Karzai's decision for what they call illegal act by Karzai.

It is important to know that the new Parliament has been seated into the house for more than a year and they have done nothing at all to change the law, help the people who risked their life to elect them. No! instead they have to scare kids who live in Orphanages of Kabul. these orphanages are funded and run by volunteers who risk their life to come to Afghanistan and change a life. the politicians who scream slogans of Democracy, human rights have not done anything to help these kids at all, though they have the money to do so. palaces in Dubai and mansions in Kabul suits them more with their armored cars and bodyguards all around them than helping the same children they probably orphaned.

Email bellow is an account of one of these brutalities the Parliamentarians committed against the children. i recieved it from a friend and want to share it with the few readers that i have.

I also want to thank Andesha Organization for helping these kids with shelter, and education. i request the readers of this post to do whatever in their means to help these kids.
AFCECO (Afghan Child Education and Care Organization)
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Dear friends and supporters of AFCECO,



We feel it our obligation to inform you of an incident that warrants all our awareness, and perhaps for us all to work together in whatever manner at our disposal to help prevent this kind of incident from occurring again.



On Tuesday morning, September 20th, AFCECO was once again the target of inexplicable animosity, not from enemies among Taliban insurgents, but from elements of authority within our very own civil society. Several Members of Parliament along with armed guards stormed through the gates of our New Learning Center just as the doors were opening for a car to leave. These intruders came without warning, full of threats and accusations and commands, brandishing their rifles. The intimidation level was one step short of an operation to apprehend Al Qaeda operatives in the middle of the night. The only ones to field this intrusion were our young female staff members responsible for reception and library duties at the center.



The Members of Parliament entered expecting to see nothing short of a brothel where westerners come to seek favors, or a place where missionaries were actively converting children to Christianity, and so on. (These were their literal accusations). All of this was incited primarily by a female Parliamentarian Razia Sadat Mangal, a neighbor who based her accusations solely upon sightings of westerners coming and going to and from the NLC. These so-called “criminals” from the West in actuality included a few volunteers teaching English, journalists and representatives of USAID, The Asia Foundation and emissaries from the U.S. and British Embassies. It should be mentioned that Ms. Mangal had attempted entering the NLC herself, unannounced the week before, accompanied by her personal armed guards, but our guards had no authority to allow them in without permission. Instead the MP was invited to arrange a tour of the AFCECO programs. “There is nothing to hide here,” the guard had said. Without accepting this invitation Ms. Mangal responded by building up her accusations, recruiting other MPs and proceeding with this plan to simply march through the gates.



We cannot express the degree to which the intruding malefactors intimidated and frightened our staff. Other MPs joining this group included Najia Orgonwal and the particularly assaultive Kamal Nasir Osuli. Of course by the end of their thorough investigation (as if they had a warrant for our operations director’s arrest, which they did announce they initially intended to do) and found only schoolbooks, computers, musical instruments and white boards, the only accusations remaining were, “Why do you teach music?” and “Why so much money spent on these children?” Then these people demanded to see one of the orphanages. This armed party re-enacted their assault at Mehan orphanage, this time terrifying the children. One of our girls was interrogated and reduced to tears. It is important to understand the fashion in which this supposed “review committee” executed its “duties”. Imagine a sudden rushing in of armed guards, shouted commands and insults. In the end, this assault party could only walk away uttering threats that they intend to force me to answer to Parliament about AFCECO activities. Our staff reported that a few of those who had been incited to join this interrogation (not the named MPs above) went away visibly embarrassed.



There are several issues involved here, but the primary question is why, with so many problems in Afghanistan are Members of Parliament spending time, energy and resources battling orphans whose only crime is enjoying security, healthcare and education and one another’s love and friendship? We surmise this in part has to do with certain people trying to create something sensational to place as a feather in their cap, to rise in certain echelons within the government. We also see that the primary social battle still in Afghanistan is the acceptance that girls deserve equal education to boys, and that they be allowed to learn something as universal as how to play a piano.



AFCECO, an Afghan licensed NGO has enough on our plate maintaining the orphanages, tending to the children and raising the funds necessary to do this, without having to fight for legitimization. What we do is simple and uncontroversial and involves no ideological agenda. We could not say it better than Brian Williams of NBC News once said, that AFCECO orphanage is a “safe haven” for the most destitute children.



The children are tired of this kind of assault. We have faced it in other ways through the years, such as insulting and brutal interrogations of our representatives by intelligence agents and smear campaigns by privately owned media. But this time the malfeasants invaded our home and frightened the children directly. We will not stand for this and require that in the name of decency and democracy those responsible be held accountable. Most of all, we feel an apology directly given to the children would go great lengths in making amends.



We inform you of this incident because we are one big family. We do not expect you have any particular power to respond, but if you do, whatever pressures you can bring to bear in whatever fashion you deem constructive would be dearly appreciated.



Thanks in advance for your support and sympathy.



Andeisha


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Andeisha Farid
Founder and Executive Director
AFCECO
www.afceco.org
andeisha@afceco.org
Tel: 0093-(0)798-809-007

The Truth! what Afghans are afraid to say

I might die for writing something like this but I can’t stand this anymore.

I want to thank my friend Kim Asher who helped me by editing and correcting my non-perfect English.

On Sep 13, 2011 the Haqqani network, which, having planned a high profile attack in Kabul, carried it out to the letter. The group of either 6 or 7 insurgents took over an unfinished 14-story building west of Abdul Haq Circle that overlooks the U.S embassy, ISAF HQ, and NDS HQ. The gun battle started around 01:30 in the afternoon and continued on until late the next morning. The total length of the gun battle was over 21 hours, during which all the insurgents, 4 police and 9 civilians were killed and 8 police and 11 civilians were injured. I do not need to talk about the details of the fight because the media has already covered it.

What I want to know, and am sure a lot of Afghan civilians do too, is how did they get in? How did they manage to carry that many weapons and that much ammunition all the way to the top floor with nobody seeing it? Forget that, how did they get into Kabul? Does anybody beside me think that officials in the ranks of ANSF and the Afghan Government were involved in helping the insurgents carry out their operation? I mean the attacks on the Ministry of Defense on the 18th of April 2011 and the Intercontinental on 28th of June 2011 were planned attacks that were probably researched, drawn-up and planned months in advance. None of those attacks could have happened without the help of officials from within the ranks of the Afghan government. This comes after the Transition in which ISAF gave the responsibility of Kabul and other provinces and cities, to ANSF. An ISAF spokesman, after the attack in Kabul on the 14th of September, said that the force believes ANSF are capable of carrying out the Transition and that there will be no going back. It is like giving a black hawk helicopter to a kid and saying "you can fly this."

Then on the 20th of September yet another attack in Kabul, against the head of the peace council. In that attack, the head of Afghanistan peace council and former president of Afghanistan of the Jihad era, before the Taliban, was killed alongside 4 others. This clearly tells you the capability of ANSF against the threats that face Afghanistan and specially Kabul everyday. One of my friends wrote an article “Afghan ex-leader’s death threatens peace” link http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/war/afghanistan-war/110920/afghan-leader-president-burhanuddin-rabbani-hamid-karzai-taliban-attack-kabul. Really? What peace?! We don’t have peace. We never had peace and until these warmongers are alive we will never have peace.

Remember that these are the same warlords of yesterday who were the cause of 10,000 rocket shells being fired on Kabul city each day, the cause of more than 2 million deaths throughout Afghanistan, the cause of more than 5 million civilians fleeing the country, the cause of unmatched war and mayhem in Afghanistan.

But nobody is brave enough to talk about it. Do we stand against them and say “you need to be prosecuted and hanged for the crimes you have committed against the Afghan population”? No. Instead, yesterday’s war and massacre of the Afghan people is called “Jihad wa Muqawimat” which translates as “holy war and resistance”. Really? Holy war & Resistance against whom? What factions of the infidels were you fighting against at that moment? Russians? They left! Americans? They left too. 

No. You were fighting for power and who gets what. When the Russians left, instead of caring about the nation and deciding to elect whoever can run the country and do the job best, you started fighting each other and killing hundreds of thousands of people in the process, leaving the country in turmoil.

When somebody stands up and is brave enough to say that you are a criminal and a murderer - which is the truth - you declare them a communist; an infidel that needs to be killed. 

On 17 September 2003, Malalai Joya, a brave Afghan female Parliamentarian from Farah province, stood up at the Grand Assembly to tell the truth and request that leaders present at the assembly, who were mostly war criminals, be prosecuted for their crimes against humanity instead of representing Afghan people in the assembly. War criminals, who destroyed Afghanistan, declared her to be an infidel and a communist and removed her from the assembly because she refused to apologize for the truth she had presented.

Warlords have used religion to justify everything, including every crime they have committed for decades, and still do. Anybody who stands against them will be killed. 

When Karzai lead the transition in 2001, he said that all war criminals will be prosecuted, but not only did that not happen, his entire cabinet is made of war criminals and thugs who are thirsty for the blood of Afghan people. 

Billions of dollars have been literally dumped into Afghanistan but at least 80% of that money has either been stolen by these so-called leaders or been used in areas of their interest. I know that by now the world is tired of having carried Afghanistan for so long; they have spent billions of dollars and they see no progress being made because Afghan officials are corrupt and all the aid money being dumped into this country goes into the pockets of dirty politicians who have done nothing but destroy this country in decades past and will do for decades in the future if they see benefits for them in it.

Afghanistan has trillions of dollars in natural resources, but little or no work has been done to use those resources to build the country. 

I am sure 99% of the leaders of Afghanistan do not think past today and only of how to rob the people of Afghanistan of whatever they still have left. 

Message to Mr. Karzai: Forming special commissions to get rid of corruption in government bodies will not resolve anything if the lead man (you) and the people close to him (Khalili, Fahim, Sayaaf, Mujjaddadi, etc) are up to their necks in corruption.

50% of the population (women) in Afghanistan are not even considered human, let alone equal, and nothing has been done to help them participate in society.

Women in this society do not have a voice or any rights. Every filthy, disgusting, crazy moron on the street, who has no right to do so, harasses woman like it is their birthright and leaders who speak about democracy and equal rights have done nothing but provoke people to continue with such despicable behavior. The very forces that are here to defend the rights of citizens (men and women) harass woman, so what hope is there for this country and its future?

Know this, you insecure idiots: unless you give that 50% their birthright to not just live, but also participate fully in this society, you and this country will NEVER make it.

Government seats are given to tribes, according to their percentage of the population, for the balance of power. THAT IS NEVER and WILL NEVER BE THE SOLUTION. 

The best man or woman for the job should be elected according to their abilities, NOT allocated seats because of their gender, ethnicity, tribe or religion, but no one in the grip of power seems to understand this or they just simply ignore it. 

Religion and Politics cannot work together. If we (Afghans) want our country to be peaceful, developed and united, we need to forget what race, tribe, religion, background, gender we are and work as one (AFGHAN).

 

Karzai and his team of Professional Conman!!!

N.Y times in an Article that was published on the 17th of June 2011 said that the World Bank is Withholding $70 million from the Government of Afghanistan because of the Kabul bank crises that lost around $300 million in august 2010, by January that number rose up to $900 million in losses. 
Kabul Bank is the Largest bank in Afghanistan that was doing around 70% of the pay for Police and Afghan National Army before the crises. it's shareholders included Vise President Qasim Fahim and Brother of Hamid Karzai. these Shareholders did a major undocumented pullout from Kabul Bank to invest or party in other countries of the world "guess not even the Afghan Politicians in highest ranks of the Government think this country will survive." the President and VP of Kabul Bank were told to Resign after the incident and Karzai launched an Investigative Commission by demand of World Bank to find out what went wrong. 
The Crises was the cause of bringing down Afghanis from 50 to 45 per dollar.
This Commission concluded that all 207 shareholders who were major politicians and power brokers in Afghanistan did nothing wrong and had no hand in the crises. the report was then presented to I.M.F (International Monetary Fund) by the commission in hopes that the frozen funds be released to Afghan Government but since I.M.F was not satisfied with the result of the findings which of course they weren't, Afghanistan might lose that $70 million forever and donor countries will need more transparency from the Afghan Government in order to release more funds. these donor countries have not put any funds for Afghanistan in the last 3 months. that money will dry up soon and may cause for Afghan Government not to be able to pay 250,000 civil servants that includes ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces).
So you see Karzai does care about his Brothers and the people around him but does not care about the real servants of Afghanistan that is shedding sweat and blood for this country everyday. 
Since fall of the Taliban in 2001 the International Community have spent billions of dollars in AID money for Afghanistan, but none of this money was spent to stabilize Afghan Economy and Afghan lives. most of the money that was/is being spent in Afghanistan is for structures and goods that will vanish in the 2nd day. for example; giving $150 to every Afghan returnee will not solve his lifelong problem but giving him a job will. there are more than 3 million people that are jobless in Afghanistan. since 2001 there has not been much attention to creating factories that hire local afghans for work. Ministry of works says that we do not have expert workers in the field required but they could give him training to do the job properly, i mean how hard is it to drive a tractor on a farm land? 
in order for this country to survive an economic crises, she needs sustainable economy; and for a sustainable economy you need an industry, Local production "Factories", standardized import and export which Afghanistan has little of. Money that comes easy goes easy and can not be accounted for in most cases and International AID money purring into Afghanistan is just like that.  
Politicians like Karzai and his team only cares about their own pockets and what they can get out of this mess that will help them. they have never cared for Afghanistan and will never care for it. we the youth of Afghanistan need to think about it's future or this country is going to Dark ages one again!!!!
 
By: Mohammad Jawad (JD)

Is it me or does this sound like Screw the Pooch Deal to everybody!!??