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
