quote:

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The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by reports that police arrested the editor of a women's rights' magazine in Kabul on Saturday after local religious leaders accused him of publishing anti-Islamic articles.

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cpj.org

Let's do something about this.

PETTIGREW, Pierre Stewart - Minister of Foreign Affairs
Conservative critic: DAY, Stockwell Burt
Bloc Québécois critic: LALONDE, Francine
New Democratic Party critic: MCDONOUGH, Alexa

GRAHAM, William (Bill) - Minister of National Defence
Conservative critic: O'CONNOR, Gordon
Bloc Québécois critic: BACHAND, Claude
New Democratic Party critic: BLAIKIE, William Alexander (Bill)

MARTIN, Paul Edgar Philippe - Prime Minister
Conservative critic: HARPER, Stephen Joseph
Bloc Québécois critic: DUCEPPE, Gilles
New Democratic Party critic: LAYTON, Jack

FRULLA, Liza - Minister of Canadian Heritage and Minister responsible for the Status of Women
Conservative critic: YELICH, Lynne
Bloc Québécois critic: BRUNELLE, Paule
New Democratic Party critic: CROWDER, Jean

Mail may be sent postage-free to any Member at the following address:

House of Commons
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada
K1A 0A6

Additional contact information for MPs (including e-mail addresses):
Members of the House of Commons

[ 05 October 2005: Message edited by: writer ]

(Well, actually, that could take me a few hours on and off, but I may write a little extra something to Rick Hillier while I'm at it. )

I wonder what Laura Bush and Cherie Blair will be doing about this story, given their profound concern for the liberation of the women of Afghanistan.

[Edited for Freudian slip.]

[ 05 October 2005: Message edited by: skdadl ]

quote:

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Originally posted by skdadl:
Y'know, I know that it isn't fair to call other babblers out -- people don't have to post here if they don't want to -- but there are a number of apologists for the American-led Afghan campaign arguing on several babble threads right now in favour of Canadian support for that campaign, for shoring up the American puppet government as the best way to liberate the people of Afghanistan, and I hope that every time they pipe up from now on, someone will cross-reference to this thread.

---

I don't see how the expression of religious fundamentalist doctrine with regard to gender in Afghanistan's governance can be viewed as chiefly a consequence of American-led intervention affecting Afghan politics. To state the obvious, expression by women of women's issues was even more restricted under the Taliban. If Afghanistan remains religious fundamentalist with regard to gender issues in the post-Taliban era, it's nothing new and certainly nothing suprising to anyone with the least bit of realist cynicism tempering their progressive political expectations. Had the international community in collaboration with Afghan feminists indeed actually been able to revolutionise gender politics in Afghanistan in the space of time between the Taliban and now, I would have found myself rather massively baffled by the situation indeed.

quote:

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People need to be *born* into non-descrimination to really believe in it, in most cases. This kind of thing doesn't happen on the spur of the moment.

---

Yst, I assure you: I was not "born" into non-discrimination -- trust me on that -- but like I rilly rilly believe in it, eh? Like, my whole life, I have thought I was just such a complete human bean -- I can't tell you.

Ok -- I will be fair, Yst. I have often made posts on babble very like yours, when liberal North Americans decide that we must go charging self-righteously into Nigeria, eg, because yet another woman or gay man has been sentenced to horrific death in a northern province (in spite of the fact that we have now been told, numerous times, that we help activists in the country better by following their lead in getting all those sentences annulled, as all regularly are).

So I understand where you are coming from. However, RAWA was not a fantasy -- it was one of the most effective political groups during the Taliban years in getting news out of the country about what was really going on. Are you telling me that RAWA were ever the "darlings" of the Western media, Yst? I don't think so.

They sure weren't the darlings of George W. Bush and Tony Blair -- or their wives -- at the time of the invasion and the setting-up of the puppet Karzai government. Had they been the darlings, the Bushites would have made sure to give them a place in that government. Had they been the darlings, they would not be arguing on their website against the current occupation, posting photos of ongoing public horrors, even in Kabul.

To me, Yst, the immediate problem is the occupation, the nature of the occupation, the cynical justifications of the occupation, and Canadian participation in that cynical occupation. Are you telling me that Western intervention of that kind is to be preferred to the protests of Western civil libertarians -- in this case, journalists, women, and anyone friendly to them -- against the continuing repression of women in Afghanistan? Continuing repression that is currently being shored up by the Canadian military? A Canadian military headed by a man who spits testosterone?

Update: I've passed news about this arrest on to the PAR-L discussion list.

quote:

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Originally posted by skdadl:
There are a number of apologists for the American-led Afghan campaign . . . I hope that every time they pipe up from now on, someone will cross-reference to this thread.

---

quote:

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When the law was signed, government officials said that journalists could only be detained with the approval of a 17- member commission of government officials and journalists

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[ 05 October 2005: Message edited by: Andrew_Jay ]

Before I offer up the limp and lifeless body, I thought I should add to my comments above:

I think there are two separate issues here, and the one with immediate political traction is Canadian military support of a repressive regime. I do not see how we can at one and the same time fight the corrupt and repressive Iranian authorities for a full accounting of what happened to Zahra Kazemi (and the return of her body to her son in Canada) and yet provide soldiers for a regime that would do precisely the same thing to any uppity woman in Afghanistan.

The issue of women's liberation in many countries, certainly not just Islamic regimes, indeed needs to be approached by Western activists in a more humble spirit. It is usually far better to find and then follow local activists who can teach us about the richness of their culture and how change is best worked for than for us to stomp in blinded by our own privilege.

Anyway, here's what I wrote to our two relevant public servants, and I shall forward it to all the others writer has listed above. Feel free to critique as much as you like -- I don't write this kind of thing at all well -- or to copy whatever.

quote:

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Subject line: Editor of Women's Rights Magazine Arrested in Kabul

Dear Ministers:

I am concerned to read that the High Court of Afghanistan has ordered the arrest of Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, editor of the monthly /Haqooq-i-Zan/ (Women's Rights), after articles published in the magazine were deemed "un-Islamic" and "insulting to Islam."

As you will be aware, the liberation of the people of Afghanistan from a regime that did not respect their civil liberties, and in particular the liberation of the women of Afghanistan from government repression, have repeatedly been cited as justifications for the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the continued occupation of that country.

Given the ongoing role that the Canadian Forces have played in supporting the current regime in Afghanistan, a role that has been stepped up in recent months, I believe that Canadian citizens must insist that our government make clear to the government of Afghanistan that we abhor the violation of the civil liberties of any citizen of Afghanistan. The presence of our troops in the country makes our need to protest such violations all the more urgent.

Canadian citizens have an interest in extending a helping hand to the citizens of Afghanistan, but we have no interest at all in reinforcing any regime that would circumscribe their freedom of thought and expression, or in qualifying the rights of Afghan women as fully equal human beings. It would be an outrage to the citizens of both nations to witness continued Canadian military support of such a regime.

I trust that, as our representatives, you will convey our outrage at the arrest of Ali Mohaqiq Nasab to President Karzai directly, and conduct an ongoing review of our military commitments in Afghanistan in the context of his effective response.

Yours sincerely

[skdadl]
[who even included her address]

---

Foreign Affairs

• PETTIGREW, Pierre Stewart - Minister [email protected]
• Conservative critic: DAY, Stockwell Burt [email protected]
• Bloc Québécois critic: LALONDE, Francine [email protected]
• New Democratic Party critic: MCDONOUGH, Alexa [email protected]

National Defence

• GRAHAM, William (Bill) - Minister [email protected]
• Conservative critic: O'CONNOR, Gordon [email protected]
• Bloc Québécois critic: BACHAND, Claude [email protected]
• New Democratic Party critic: BLAIKIE, William Alexander (Bill) [email protected]

Leaders

• MARTIN, Paul Edgar Philippe - Prime Minister [email protected]
• Conservative leader: HARPER, Stephen Joseph [email protected]
• Bloc Québécois leader: DUCEPPE, Gilles [email protected]
• New Democratic Party leader: LAYTON, Jack [email protected]

Status of Women

• FRULLA, Liza - Minister [email protected]
• Conservative critic: YELICH, Lynne [email protected]
• Bloc Québécois critic: BRUNELLE, Paule [email protected]
• New Democratic Party critic: CROWDER, Jean [email protected]

[ 05 October 2005: Message edited by: writer ]

quote:

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Originally posted by skdadl:
Andrew_Jay, I just love it. You can justify Western intervention in Afghanistan for all kinds of condescending reasons, but when it comes to freedom of the press or women's rights, suddenly you're turning around and patting us on the heads and reminding us that "progress takes time"?!?

---

I justify the intervention in Afghanistan largely for humanitarian grounds, and in the interest of freedom and human rights. Guess what, I support the freedom of the press, and the end of the repression of women, for the same reasons.

Sorry to dissapoint you.

P.S. "bloody well get out of the country" (to, presumably, let the Taliban or some warlord take over) and "progress" are so incompatible that it's not even funny.

quote:

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So, Andrew_Jay, what are you going to do about this "one step back"?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Andrew_Jay:
And what, exactly, are my condescending views that are so incompatible with my concerns about the status of women and the state of the media? [...]

I justify the intervention in Afghanistan largely for humanitarian grounds, and in the interest of freedom and human rights. [...]

P.S. "bloody well get out of the country" (to, presumably, let the Taliban or some warlord take over) and "progress" are so incompatible that it's not even funny. [...]

---

To me, it is condescending for Westerners to assume that the first and most brutal solutions that pop into their heads are to be equated with "humanitarianism."

It is certainly true that the Afghans have been brutalized and traumatized for a long time -- by outsiders who either thought they knew best what was best for Afghanistan or at least spun their predatory incursions that way.

Excellent letter, I agree to what you have written. I think I will send in a complaint also.

Mr Harper reminds me to include my mailing address if I would like a response. I had done that. So I shall await a response.

more context for those demanding Instant Scandinavia, as if by magic wand:

- number of influential women under Taliban :0
- minimum number today: 68 (female members of Afghan Parliament)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/09/magazine/09afghan.html

They used to do that in the old Soviet bloc, too. Put a few designatedminorities in some powerless position, then use it to create phony legitimacy.

The US makes most decisions in Afghanistan, followed by Karzai. Then come assorted warlords and gunmen.

Strictly in last place is the Parliament.

quote:

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The editor of an Afghan women's rights magazine went on trial on Tuesday charged with blasphemy and Islamic religious scholars demanded a jail sentence of up to 15 years, a court official said.

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Metro News

Call for detained women’s rights magazine editor to be freed on bail
Reporters Without Borders

[ 11 October 2005: Message edited by: writer ]

The editor of an Afghan women's rights magazine has been jailed for ten days so far on charges of publishing articles criticizing execution and other severe punishments for adultery, thievery, and murder under Sharia (Islamic) law. Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, the male editor of Haqooq-i-zan, which means Women’s Rights, was reportedly arrested at the urging of Mohaiuddin Baluch, who serves as a religious advisor to President Hamid Karzai.

“This is of grave concern,” said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority. “The United States is telling the world that the US is supporting women’s rights and democracy in Afghanistan. Freedom of speech is fundamental to women’s rights and democracy.”

...

Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, the male editor of a women's rights magazine in Afghanistan, has been sentenced to two years in jail by for criticizing punishments doled out because of interpretations of Sharia (Islamic) law.

Ms. Magazine

[ 25 October 2005: Message edited by: audra trower williams ]

quote:

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Dear Ms. [Dadl]:

On behalf of the Honourable William Graham, Minister of National Defence, I
would like to thank you for your e-mail of 5 October 2005 concerning the
Afghanistan authorities' arrest of Ali Mohaqiq Nasab.

The matter you describe falls under the responsibility of the Minister of
Foreign Affairs, and I note that you have already directed your
correspondence to the Honourable Pierre S. Pettigrew, who I am sure will
give your comments every consideration.

Thank you for taking the time to write to the Minister.

Sincerely,

Michael H. Jackson
Acting Manager
Minister's Correspondence Unit

---

We don't answer our mail very quickly, do we.

quote:

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Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, the editor of an Afghan women's rights magazine who was convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to two years in prison, is facing increasing calls for harsher punishments, including a recent fatwa demanding that Nasab repent or be executed.

Feminist Majority Foundation

---

Gee, I wonder whether our enthusiastic supporters of Canada's JTF2 mission in Afghanistan are reading that report.

One article criticized a provision under Shariah, or Islamic law, calling for adulterers to be punished with 100 lashes.

An appeals court reduced Nasab's sentence to six months and suspended the remaining three months after he apologized to the court for the articles, said Maulvi Muhayuddin Baluch, a religious affairs adviser to President Hamid Karzai.

Nasab was expected to be released from prison Saturday, said Abdul Razzaq, the magazine's deputy editor."

Imminent release of Ali Mohaqiq Nasab

Here is an update from Reporters without Borders.

quote:

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The appeal ruling came as several Afghan religious groups were calling for Nasab to be sentenced to death for blasphemy. Two hundred Islamic teachers in the southern city of Kandahar had issued a fatwa demanding that the journalist should be hanged unless he apologized within three days.

"The Kabul High Court’s decision is a defeat for those religious leaders and the prosecutor who were demanding an even harsher penalty against Nasab", Reporters Without Borders said, adding, "The campaign for his release in Afghanistan and abroad was not in vain".

---

Well, yes and no. His sentence was reduced and then suspended, not overturned.

[ 25 December 2005: Message edited by: looney ]

quote:

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Originally posted by jeff house:
Oh Geneva, please.

They used to do that in the old Soviet bloc, too. Put a few designatedminorities in some powerless position, then use it to create phony legitimacy.

---

In the words of Australian journalist John Pilger,

quote:

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"Under tribalism and feudalism, life expectancy was thirty-five and almost one in three children died in infancy. Ninety per cent of the population was illiterate. The new [PDPA] government introduced free medical care in the poorest areas. Peonage was abolished; a mass literacy campaign was begun. For women, the gains were unheard of; by the late 1980s, half the university students were women, and women made up 40 per cent of Afghanistan's doctors, 70 per cent of its teachers and 30 per cent of its civil servants."

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Edited to add: I think that removing our military presence in Afghanistan would have been a better plan at one time. If we're there to "remove land mines" and other noble things as someone suggests and not simply freeing up U.S. forces for the fascist occupation in Iraq, then I think it's necessary that we're there. But I find it hard to believe that we're actually affecting law and order in that country, especially when the hand-picked puppets of the U.S. have any say whatsoever in the alleged democratization of Afghanistan. The U.S. and Pakistan aided and abetted the buildup of a grotesque form of militant Islam in that country off Russia's front doorstep. Realistically, this is no time to abandon the peasant population of that country.

There should be more numerous UN peace keeping contingents in that country with a mandate to maintain law and order and secondary objective to disarm the war lords and drug baron armies. Unfortunately, the present effort in Afghanistan is too small, too little and too late to be of any real assistance to the Afghani people who were in the middle of a revolution initiated by a women's rights movement when it was put on hold indefinitely.

Repression of whole nations of people continues to be the western world's unwritten plan for the third world. We can help the third world best by fighting for real democracy here at home. I'm afraid we are no closer to autonomy or sovereignty in Canada than Afghani's are today.
I'm afraid that asking Paul Martin or Pierre Pettigrew to do anything about US imperialism in Afghanistan would be akin to asking Arnoldo Aleman, former president of Nicaragua from 97 to 2002, to give back the $100 million he stole from poor people. Our Liberal autocrats have no intention of taking their focus off of the money or handing off pieces of Canada to their wealthy friends from around the world. I'm afraid we can't get there from here.

[ 26 December 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

I am one who would recklessly advocate a radical breach from American policies and actions and a sharp re-defining of our national interest, accompanied by a conscious decision of Canadians to accept whatever drop in standard of living might be consequent upon such a decision.

Until Canada has decided to adopt such a position, however, it appears to me that we have to play the hand we are dealt, and find areas where we can support America militarily to prove our bona fides, and God knows these are becoming more difficult to find. Afghanistan, I want to believe, provides one example of a place where Canadian forces can help America achieve its objectives without compromising Canadian values.

Afghanistan is a special case in many ways - it certainly will not fit into anyone's easy empire expansion projects. Afghanis have proven themselves the most unconquerable of all peoples. Freedom-loving people rightly suspect all US interventions - but Kosovo, Somalia and a few other examples suggest that sometimes the US may do the right thing, even if for the wrong reasons. Afghanistan is such a case, I think.

quote:

---

Originally posted by looney:
Afghanistan, I want to believe, provides one example of a place where Canadian forces can help America achieve its objectives without compromising Canadian values.

Afghanistan is a special case in many ways - it certainly will not fit into anyone's easy empire expansion projects. Afghanis have proven themselves the most unconquerable of all peoples. Freedom-loving people rightly suspect all US interventions - but Kosovo, Somalia and a few other examples suggest that sometimes the US may do the right thing, even if for the wrong reasons. Afghanistan is such a case, I think.

---

It also appears that you do not know what the Canadian JTF2 is doing in Afghanistan. They aren't there to do mine clearing and hand out lollipops to kids. Their mission is to hunt down and kill people that the US considers to be enemies.

quote:

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David Rudd, with the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, told CBC News the soldiers of JTF2 are not trained to take and hold ground. "What they do is infiltrate into dangerous areas behind enemy lines, look for key targets and take them out. They don't go out to arrest people. They don't go out there to hand out food parcels. They go out to kill targets."

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looney, your ideas about "the right thing to do in Afghanistan," plus Fidel's mindless propagandistic rewriting of the history of Afghanistan - those plus [however much Tim's is charging these days - I don't know: I make my own coffee] will buy you a cup of coffee at Tim's.

It's wrong. It's all wrong. It is leading to disaster.

Once we have everyone past their current states of denial, then maybe we can work on building a serious foreign policy. Not before.

Fidel, get this through your head: you are not better than the Afghans. You are not. You are not smarter than they are about Afghanistan; you are not. And it doesn't matter whether you have better plumbing or even more civil rights. You do not know better than they do about anything to do with Afghanistan, and you never will.

God knows, the Russians have spent two centuries proving that they don't and won't. The Americans have had less time, but have caught up on the destructive side pretty fast.

From your previous post, in view of your stated preference for a "radical breach" from US foreign policy, and damn the torpedoes, I was prepared to believe that your support for the Canada/US adventure in Afghanistan was the result of naive incomprehension of the true nature of American imperialism and our role in it.

quote:

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That is to say, I am not nearly as offended that JTF2 forces are operating with the US military in Afghanistan as I am that Canada has not positioned itself to take a far more independent military posture generally.

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How nice for you - you being a Canadian and all, and not an Afghan.

I heartily oppose the American thrust for world wide military domination, and in fact am so opposed that I've actually spent some time thinking and educating myself about it. I have limited patience for those who are horrified by our co-operation with America in Afghanistan who do not take the time to understand that such involvement is inescapable until we develop a far more independent foreign policy position, a big part of which will involve drastically strengthening Canadian military capabilities.

And Skdadl, I simply don't share your assumption that JTF2's military actions will necessarily be harmful, rather than helpful to Afghanis (excepting the ones they kill of course - who in most cases will be people actively working to make Afghanistan ungovernable - hard to see how they are helping things).

[ 01 January 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]