The President's wife supports the French Niqab ban

Is the first lady of Afghanistan Rula Ghani a hypocrite?  I support her effort to support and improve the situation of women in Afghanistan, but at the same time,even though a full veil may restrict a woman's view, perhaps the veil is part of their religion and their way of living, which has to be respected. Does wearing a veil affect a women's ability to take an active and equal part in society?Ghani seems to blame the full veil for the difficult position women wearing it are in. Is she right I wonder?

SEE THIS LINK 

Justice for Women

Some stories have come to my attention in the past couple of weeks. The first was the news that a woman was executed by the Taliban over claims that she had committed adultery.

The other was about an Afghan girl, Walija, who was being divorced by her unscrupulous husband with disastrous consequences. She was beaten by both him and his father after refusing to sign divorce papers before she receives money that is owed to her. She does have relatives in Australia and, they are filing for asylum status.

She is in the process of getting her citizenship.

It is difficult to believe that these two cases are both taking place in 2012. Stoning a women for adultery and beating another for questioning the divorce process! The sad reality is that the 'adulterous' woman may have been innocent, but we shall never know as there is no justice system that is equipped to deal with family issues. Let us hope that there may at least be a future for Walija in Australia.

The 256th soldier to die!!

The Independent on Feb 9th seems to make us aware that there are contradictory messages coming from Afghanistan. This death toll is more than the no. killed in the 1982 Falklands war.

Gen Stanley McChrystal the US commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan is aiming to retake Marjah which is now in Taliban hands; he wanted the citizens to know that an Afghan Government will be there to replace the Taliban. But the Taliban are not going to leave without a fight. They said that they would "defeat the infidel invader". They also have brave international Mujahedin behind them.

Mahar now looks empty; most of the families have now gone, but as a farmer says: he has no money to leave with his family and cannot move them to safety.

With accusations being levelled at MI5 today Feb; and there are prisoners at Guantanamo Bay that "committed suicide" simultaneously by hanging themselves in their cells, yet the cells are checked every 10 minutes, with 5 guards for 28 prisoners but the bodies weren't discovered for two hours!

Lord Newburger cited that MI5 must have known about the treatment and torture of Binyam Mohamed with apparently all those condoning this treatment. The trials go on and the public get more and more disillusioned with the institutions that they had trusted for so many years.
We are from a first world country, but how will the Afghans be able to trust the US, UK,China and the big powers.

Where do we go from here?

This is a really muddling situation, which Obama is trying to see his way through, as Andrew Sullivan states in his article this Sunday October 4th will he send the extra troops? which some members of the senate are all for, but the American public is not certain of and there is a lot riding on this decision and a lot of lives that could be lost.

Now, with him just being awarded a Nobel peace prize very unexpectedly "what has he done" I hear you ask? It's just two months since he took over. Well I am sure that his stance about the nuclear issue has helped - and he is all for more countries to disarm, and he wants to distance himself from the Bush premiership. He calls for more countries to unite and made the pivotal speech to the Muslims in Cairo saying that the US were holding out a hand of friendship.

Now Leitifa (which is a pseudonym) has written "My Forbidden Face" about her growing up in Kabul unable to go to Kabul university as the Taliban did not agree with women being educated and to become a journalist and was able to publish her book. She comes from a well educated family with parents both working, her mother a doctor and her father running an export business.

I don't think we can know what she must have gone through to write this book, we from a "democratic" country without the fear of being arrested by the Taliban for being a woman walking about outside without being in the presence of a man either a husband or a relative.

The Rule of Law

Hilde writes: one of my contacts in Washington is the US Institute for Peace who are doing a lot of work in Afghanistan. Although this report is from 2007, it gives a good background to the current trends in Afghan public op, especially in view of the importance of building a viable judicial system whoich build on existing mechanisms of conflict transformation and for implementing the rule of law: http://www.usip.org/pubs/usipeace_briefings/2007/0816_afghan_opinion.html

Sentenced for 20 years for downloading a human rights article

A 23 year old reporter for a local newspaper (Jahaan Naw) and a journalism student from Afghanistan has been sentenced for 20 years in prison for allegedly circulating an article about women's rights.

Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, had hoped that Afghanistan's top judges would quash his conviction for lack of evidence, or because he was tried in secret and convicted without a defense lawyer, Afzal Nooristani, to submit so much as a word in his defense.

Since he was arrested, Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has spent almost 18 months in prison. During this time, he was sentenced to death in 5 minutes by Enayatullah Baleegh for allegedly downloading and distributing a report criticizing the treatment of women under Islamic Law. The motion was later withdrawn due to international pressure, giving Kambaksh the right to appeal the sentence.

That appeal however was quashed and Mr Kambaksh's case has been passed to the prosecutors' office for "execution of the sentence", which means he could be moved to Kabul's notorious Pul-e Charkhi prison, or north to Mazar-i-Sharif, where he was first found guilty. Mr Kambaksh’s lawer has even been threatened with murder.

Mr Kambaksh's case has highlighted the tension between the voices of conservative Islam in Afghanistan and the liberal international backers of President Karzai. Mr Karzai is left in a difficult position - not wanting to appear to bow to international pressure in what is a strongly Islamic country. Mr Kambaksh's best hope is now a presidential pardon, which will force president Hamid Karzai to choose between fundamentalists in his government and the rule of law.