The legislation only applies to Shi’a, whom the Afghan Constitution allows to be governed by separate law where family issues are concerned. Shi’ite Muslims make up over 10 percent of Afghanistan’s population.”

This can’t be a good thing. Once upon a time things looked a little better for Afghan women, not much but some, then we took off to destroy Iraq.

I’ve written about RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) as far back as 2005, at blogspot, when I posted an initial link to the RAWA site and to the story of their founder Meena, who was “assassinated by the KHAD (Afghanistan branch of KGB) and their fundamentalist accomplices in Quetta, Pakistan, on February 4, 1987″. I posted several other times links to RAWA posts, expressing some disgust at the fact that we here here spent so much time talking about things like the pathos dirty tee-shirt contests, when real horror was happening in the world. Dirty water – Dirty Death – Dirty tee – shirts. No contest.

I suggested, last summer, a movie to all to watch in Dear President Obama
MOTHERLAND AFGHANISTAN in which Afghan American filmmaker Sedika Mojadidi follows her father (Dr. Qudrat Mojadidi) on his tragic trip to Afghanistan, a trip he was invited on by the U.S. government to help rehabilitate the largest women’s hospital in the country, Rabia Balkhi, a hospital which at the time was put under U.S. Sponsorship with a newly re-named Laura Bush maternity ward, and what a joke that whole thing was.

Well I’m doing it again.

A couple of the more recent RAWA posts, as you can imagine the site is posted to infrequently.

Neither the US nor Jehadies and Taliban

Transcript: Radio interview with Eman, Member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA).
I really suggest you read. Then flick through the site.

We need to help these women do whatever it is they need to do to help themselves.
“What can we do to help RAWA?”

The Afghan Women’s Mission , a registered non profit through IHC, it works closely with RAWA to support health, educational, and other programs for Afghan women.

FEMAID also works with RAWA.

Women for Afghan Women

UNIFEM Afghanistan

Women for Women International/Afghanistan

Campaign For Afghan Women and Girls, a public awareness campaign with the help of Mavis Leno, picking up now that Afghanistan is back in vogue. I am all for public awareness and the women is Afghanistan are happy to have someone publicizing their cause, they would like more people to do so, and making people aware of what is going on helps the fund raising. This cause is not ideologically distinct. Any women or man, or group of women or men can help. You do not have to have any specific ideology, you don’t have to call yourself a feminist, be a member of NOW, or the feminist majority. A concerted effort by all women and men, to help these women is needed. It’s not as glamorous as some causes and it probably won’t make Glenn Beck cry, but it is a cause too long ignored here.

Peace

I’d like to build the world a home
And furnish it with love
Grow apple trees and honey bees and snow-white turtle doves

While you were lamenting your shrinking investment portfolio, discussing whether Adam (American Idol) looks better with or without eye liner and fingernail polish, and worrying about Obama’s overexposure on national television, the United Nations was once again making a mockery of themselves. The 47 member Human Rights Council passed a non binding resolution that suggests countries around the world seriously consider promoting tolerance and understanding between cultures, religions and races. OMG.

I’d like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
I’d like to hold it in my arms and keep it company

What’s so horrible about that you ask? Well, nothing on the surface. Beyond the crust however this resolution, first introduced to the Commission on Human Rights in 1999 by Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Conference under the agenda item on “racism, is the “Dear John” letter of resolutions. Even pretty deep into it (the working resolution pdf) it all sounds pretty “UN We are The Worldish”. You read along and feel like breaking into a chorus of I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing. You’re saying “yes” inside your head, and then you come across the clincher, the “It’s not you, it’s me, I will always love you, I just can’t be with you”, of the resolution. You realize you’ve been duped. You read the suggestion that “media watch what they say and who they criticize”. Then the most certain, true intent is made clear as they say “even though everyone has the right to hold opinions, and freedom of expression is good, it might be wise to enact laws to shut up those who don’t know how to handle the special duties and responsibilities that come with these rights”.

You might consider this unimportant, the West in general voted against, or abstained from voting, and always has, as did India, and it won’t affect us anyway. Don’t be so sure. Journalists, and some of our fellow bloggers, are getting jailed at an increasingly alarming rate. We have to pay attention to this. In a world where we are responsible in some way for humanity, where in some parts of Afghanistan girls are again being denied education due to…. religion, in a decade in which the United Nations has agreed that women’s rights are human rights, where UNIFEM promotes women’s empowerment, rights, and gender equality globally, and where the Secretary General has specifically pledged to end violence against women, this is giving permission to make laws which suppress and consequently oppress. By suppressing the voices, you suppress the cause, be it liberty, justice, or equality. As stated in some of the UN’s own member nation’s past analysis “defamation of religions,” as opposed to the defamation of persons, forcibly requires the state to determine which ideas are acceptable, as opposed to which facts are true. A fundamental rule of law problem presents itself in the notion of “defamation of religion”. Stifling legitimate criticism or even research on practices and laws appearing to be in violation of human rights.”

Those who vote continually for this resolution feel the rights of the organization, in this case religion, and more specifically Islam, trump the rights of human beings. They see religion as threatened by criticism so they designate free speech the culprit of the violence, hatred, and racism, and in so doing set a pretty unsettling picture of what could come for those living in nations who support this resolution.

In the name of peace, love, and Allah of course.

For the Love of God, as they say.

Peace.

Possibly of interest:

UN body OKs call to curb religious criticism
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Review of progress and assessment of implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action by all stakeholders at the national, regional and international levels-pdf
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UN rights council session ends in controversy
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UN Watch
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SHATTERING THE RED LINES: THE DURBAN II DRAFT DECLARATION
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