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"Afghan women in jail are lucky, at least they are alive," said Carla Ciavarella, the justice program coordinator of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan, who has worked with Afghanistan's penitentiary system for four years. "We do not know how many women are killed or abused at home every day."

The warnings follow an early September report by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime that found at least half the women in Afghanistan's largest jail are there for so-called moral crimes such as adultery, "running away," being in the company of a man who is not a relative or even giving shelter to a runaway woman.

The agency's Afghanistan representative, Christina Orguz, said many of the women would be considered victims, not perpetrators, in most other countries....

The findings echo a January 2007 assessment of the status of women in Afghanistan by Medica Mondiale, an advocacy group for traumatized women and girls in war and crisis zones that has worked extensively with female prisoners in Afghanistan.

"The judiciary overwhelmingly tends to hold women responsible for crimes even when they themselves are the victims and cases are judged employing tribal laws of traditions instead of codified law," the Cologne, Germany-based group found. "In particular accusations of 'zina,' or sexual intercourse outside of marriage--irrespective of the truth--are often prosecuted and the woman sentenced to prison even when she was the victim of rape." Source

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Mind you, this isn't all bad. The police were robbing local businesses. Maybe, now that they get their salaries, this practice will decline.

The Globe article says:

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Police were forced to steal for a living when their pay didn't arrive from Kabul..."They had to take bribes from the people, because they have to live," Gen. Laroche said.

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quote:

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The US, just as much as NATO or the UN, keep insisting that any withdrawal by the occupying troops in Afghanistan will leave a vacuum that will be filled by “extremists”. With anti-occupation forces in direct or indirect control of 75% of the country, this is no more than yet another Western fallacy.

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Losing in Afghanistan (and some data of anti-occupation control of the country)

Here's the quote in full:

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The barbarism of the occupation is cooking up a brew of ever greater resistance although one that is a long way from being a left wing or progressive nationalist movement. Just as in Iraq, the right of the Afghan people to their sovereignty, self-determination and dignity is beyond doubt however much the occupying troops drape themselves in blue UN colours. The US, just as much as NATO or the UN, keep insisting that any withdrawal by the occupying troops in Afghanistan will leave a vacuum that will be filled by “extremists”. With anti-occupation forces in direct or indirect control of 75% of the country, this is no more than yet another Western fallacy. As happened in September 2006 when the Canadians and British congratulated themselves on having caused 500 casualties to the Taliban in Panjwai and in Zahri after two weeks of air attacks and repeating again and again they had those villages under control. But it turned out they could not show a single one of the alleged 500 casulaties simply because the anti-occuaption fighters (whether they were Taliban or not) had disappeared. So they changed their story and said, “We forced the Taliban to flee”. These are the fairy tales Western public opinion listens to...until the deaths of their own troops or the kidnapping of their nationals returns them to reality.

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