afghanistan human rights

Where is the outcry by feminists around the world for the women and girls who continue to fall prey to the Taliban wherever they hold sway? The silence is deafening... and nauseating. From NPR:

Earlier this month, two brutal incidents caught the world’s attention. An Afghan woman appeared on the cover of Time magazine, her nose cut off because she fled an abusive marriage. The other was the pregnant widow in Baghdis province accused of adultery. The local Taliban commander ordered 200 lashes and then shot the woman to death. A Taliban spokesman denied responsibility in both cases.

If Afghanistan is going to develop a civil society that can function over the long term, there must be rule of law. The country faces a challenge in ensuring that human rights and basic criminal law functions according to international norms, but this is not necessarily a unique or insurmountable problem. Terry Glavin writes in the Calgary Herald:

Afghanistan's 2004 Constitution demands that no law must offend the Qur'an. But the Constitution also requires that all laws must be consistent with international human rights standards and conventions. It's not going to be an easy fit, Faizi concedes. But it doesn't have to be as fractious as one might think.

Where the "West" gets it wrong is in a failure to appreciate that like the English common law tradition, sharia is a vast body of laws, most of which are inoffensive to universal human rights norms. But the semiliterate political appointees that often end up as Afghan judges also get it wrong. Sharia forbids a range of practices -- forced marriage, for one -- that are commonly presumed to be authorized by the Qur'an.

Further to the Koran's injunction that "there is no compulsion" in Islam, the Afghan Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the presumption of innocence, and equality between men and women.

There will be nasty conflicts in the construction of a progressive human rights regime in a terrain of backward interpretations of sharia: "The Islamic extremists, they will react against us," Faizi said. But for the moment, the Afghan people face a more formidable challenge.

"The problem is that mostly there is no fair trial," Faizi told me. "What is really important is the practice of law. We need very strong evidences in order to find a person guilty, but it does not work like this."

Afghan women are taking to the streets to protest corruption, the Taliban, the drug lords and those associated with the warlords. This is an encouraging sign of a true flowering of democracy. Still fragile, and the women will have to be very brave in the coming days. But their acts are an inspiration.

A full article by Tony Perry on this can be found in the LA Times, Afghan Women Lead Protest Against Government Corruption

An excerpt is below:

The list of Taliban atrocities grows against those who provided hope to a nation. As reported on CTV (Female politician's murder a 'blow' to Afghan society), the Taliban have claimed responsibility for the brutal murder of a female member of Kandahar's Provincial Council, Sitara Achakzai, on Sunday afternoon. According to the report: