Karzai Says Anger At Afghan Shi'ite Law "Inappropriate"

[Mari333]

Source: ny times

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Saturday concerns expressed by the United States and the United Nations toward a new law for Afghanistan's Shi'ite minority and its impact on women's rights were inappropriate.

Shi'ite Muslims account for some 15 percent of mainly Sunni Muslim Afghanistan and the Shi'ite Personal Status Law has been attacked by Afghan lawmakers for diminishing women's rights.
In a copy of the law obtained by Reuters, Article 132 states "a wife is obliged to fulfill the sexual desires of her husband."

It also states that a husband should spend one night in every four with his wife, have sexual contact with her at least once every four months and that a woman has to wear make-up if her husband demanded it.

Article 137 also says a woman cannot inherit any of her husband's wealth when he dies

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/04/04/world/international-us-afghanistan-women.html

[kiva]

1. Tell me again how many thousands of American troops

are being sent to Afghanistan to support the rights of these men. :mad:

[Mari333]

2. yes and dont forget we (CIA) hands out FREE VIAGRA to them

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/25/AR2008122500931.html
thats your tax money folks, and our soldiers in a quagmire of shite.

[kiva]

5. For awhile I bought into the concern that pro-war in Afghanistan

people expressed about the plight of women in that country, and how we must 'win' there to protect these women. It's becoming more and more obvious that is merely an excuse, and that the US is willing to accept the denial of rights to women (or anyone else) to win the support of the all-important warlords.

Note: I do know many here at DU are sincerely supportive of women in Afghanistan and want to make it clear that I'm not accusing them of this duplicity.

[Mari333]

6. yes, Bush used that propoganda..

and if this admin starts to use it, I will laugh. I even see DUers using Bush's old meme..'we have to save the women, we have to create democracy.." to justify our occupation.

[acmavm]

8. Yes, this article gives reasons why we should be concerned for

Afgani women, especially now: This woman knows how serious this issue is:

<snip>The issue of women's rights is a source of tension between the country's conservative establishment and more liberal members of society. The Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 banned women from appearing in public without a body-covering burqa and a male escort from her family.

Now, millions of girls attend school and many women own businesses. Of 351 parliamentarians, 89 are women.

But in the staunchly conservative country, critics fear those gains could easily be reversed. Fawzia Kufi, a lawmaker who opposed the legislation, said this week that the law undermines all advances for Afghan women in the last seven years.

-MORE-

I don't think that we understand that ANY advancement in the position of women is quite a big deal in the world in which these women live. So to take ANY steps backward is a disaster for them, for their cause, for the improvement in their lives, in their daughter's lives.

Laura Bush always said that she was going to do all this crap for Afgani women, but she never delivered. It was just noise. Well, someone in this country needs to stand up to Karzai and tell him no more negotiating away a woman's humanity, a woman's rights. That is totally unacceptable. No more or no more money. We don't support country's that treat women in the way that women in Afganistan are treated.

[kiva]

12. Yes, this is unacceptable and I want to see

someone in our government say this, and follow it up with a refusal to send money and military support to any government that chooses to treat their own citizens in this fashion.

[EFerrari]

16. I joined RAWA's mailing list before 9/11 and there is a legitimate problem

but bombing these women isn't going to improve their situation. :crazy:

[cali]

3. oops, Hamid's already backing down

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hvWEqwq3CrRvaQCmt21MfoYhjZJQD97BJFJO4

[davidinalameda]

19. that's very good news

public pressure on these governments works!

[msongs]

4. yeah you guys quit picking on his religion ok? nt

[tomm2thumbs]

7. change the law, or we withdraw...

I can live with the threat - and all the money we're saving - but to encourage this trash runs entirely counter to why we are supposedly there to help

[derby378]

9. I have no words, so this will have to do

[truebrit71]

10. I think the mayor of Kabul has forgotten to whom he owes his job...

...and his safety these last few years...

Not a good idea Mr. Unocal....not a good idea at all....

[derby378]

13. That would be George W. Bush and Dick Cheney

The average American, given the chance, wouldn't put Karzai in charge.

[annabanana]

11. I'm sure they have the chapter & verse of the Koran to back them up.

Fundamentalism, a danger abroad, a danger at home.

[MasonJar]

14. Karzai is one sleazy, Bushista crook! Women must have equal rights

or we have no business helping this country in any way, especially with money and troops.

[MasonJar]

15. Actually pre-Taliban, I believe that Afghanistan women had many rights.

Do I not remember reading about women doctors and lawyer and teachers being forced out of the country? I know that Iraq was very progressive in women' rights pre-our-invasion, but I think Afghanistan was also pre-Taliban. Can anyone set me straight?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

20. I encountered a female Afghan exile who was an airline pilot

Pre-Taliban she was a 727 pilot,

[Igel]

21. Urban/rural split.

The same split was true in many Arab societies, as well. And Turkey. (The US, too, for that matter.)

One thing that happened in some countries as a result of greater prosperity and education, accompanied by greater rights, was an influx of people from the countryside into the cities. It also gave people a greater right to interpret their scriptures.

The result in most places was the small, fairly cosmopolitan minorities that pretty much ran things were swamped by a larger, less cosmopolitan yet recently empowered majority. Exactly what form that takes varies by country.

Note that the way the Taliban treats women is how many Pashtun have traditionally treated women for the last 100 years. It was just relegated to the boonies where the women didn't have a chance to become airplane pilots or doctors, and their squalid existence wasn't thrust in our faces. Now, there are differences; there's been a horrid amalgam of extremist Deobandist thought with pakhtunwala. When people become more educated but no more cultured they often don't like what they see, and the reaction can be unpleasant.

People say they like democracy, allowing the majority to have their say. They often don't like what the majority says. It's a problem.

[AlphaCentauri]

25. That was when communist ruled the country

[EFerrari]

17. Beth says Karzai is a corrupt disingenuous fraud. n/t

[whosinpower]

18. I have a solution

Let the women leave. Western nations do not have to force Afghanistan to change its laws, as repressive and insideous as they are. All they have to do, is give safe haven to any Afghani, woman and her children. Give them free passage out of the country, reeducate them and allow them a chance, and choice at freedom.

See - this is not forcing a culture to change from without - but it is empowering half its population to take control of her destiny. Perhaps, just perhaps they might VALUE the women more, if the possibility of them leaving were actually contemplated.

[JerseygirlCT]

23. Great minds! I hadn't read this before I posted below

:toast:

[AlphaCentauri]

24. There is a problem with that idea, many times women side with their oppressors

teaching their children the same rules that were used to oppress them

[newspeak]

27. I don't know about that

During the Taliban, Afghanistan had the highest female suicide rate in the world (I believe also the highest female infanticide rate) I attribute it to women who are stuck in hell and know that their daughters will experience the same. So not all women are for being repressed. If they can't escape one way, they do it another way. At the time I read about the suicides, I thought wouldn't that just be a shame if there were so few women left--now where would those nut cases get their women? Buy them from some other country?

[Marrah_G]

33. Not that kind of oppression

The Afghani women are under so much oppression, are treated so horrifically, that given a safe option to flee with their children I would best most would.

You have to know the extent to which they are oppressed. It is worse then most historical cases of slavery and far worse then animals are treated.

[Marrah_G]

32. I would back that plan 200%

In fact I would open my home to as many as I could fit.

No woman should be forced to live in slavery.

[JerseygirlCT]

22. This makes me unspeakably angry

This isn't a case of different cultures, and live and let live and all that stuff.

Half their population has been stripped of human rights. And the world is supposed to just say "vive la difference!" and go on?

How about we grant automatic citizenship to any Afghani woman or girl who wishes to emigrate? Those assholes men who like to rape their wives and deny girls education might be SOL without enough people to prey on.

[rug]

26. This government is not worth a single life to preserve it.

[Mz Pip]

28. Mz Pip says

Fuck you, Hamid.

[Vidar]

29. This is a puppet we can do without.

[No Elephants]

30. Bushco rationalized incorporating Sharia law into the Iraqi Constitution, so I can see why

Afghanistan is perplexed.

We were the only sheriff in town when the Iraqi Constitution was written.

[Marrah_G]

31. Karzai- Fuck you and the rest of the barbarians who think women are property

Disgusting little trolls.

[Neo Atheist]

34. So how long until Afghanistan brings back stoning women for being raped?

unbe-fucking-lievable.