Afghan women's voices

Janice Turner's comment in the Times today:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/5b3d4ab0-7333-4c5b-a253-efd19cb8e577?shareToken=185f8398bf9b219ccaa7831a7dfb9656

Powerful speech from Nahid Fattahi
https://x.com/NahidFattahi/status/1829581460044681300?t=s36ocVnuVaMMKJdUS278oA&s=19

Islamic countries, Muslim men, Muslim women, people of Afghanistan and specially Afghan men: Your silence is a betrayal. By allowing the Taliban’s gender apartheid and brutality to go unchallenged, you let them hijack Islam. This is not our faith. Stand up now—reclaim Islam’s true essence of peace and justice. The world is watching. Silence is no longer an option.

#EndGenderApartheid #Afghanistan #StandwithWomenOfAfghanistan

I'm still waiting for the outrage from politicians and religious leaders. I'm so sick of the accusations of apartheid levelled at Israel when this actual real gender apartheid passes unnoticed.

Just seen this in the Guardian.
www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/sep/01/heres-how-we-can-help-oppressed-women-and-girls-in-afghanistan

Thanks arabella.

where are the protests. Where are the marches.

it’s just women so they don’t matter

I am so frustrated by this. Normally there would be a boycott, protests, letters from charities....yet silence. Its like the world has collectively shrugged.

Fuck them.
Fuck the Afghan men too, who conspire with this, too - who collude in the imprisonment of their mothers, daughters, wives and sisters.

I want to do something more than wring my hands and donate money, especially when most of it ends up back with those fundamentalist bustards.

Yes, this. They should be sanctioned against in all possible ways until the law is repealed

Ive no idea how to go about organising protests but we need to start

I remember the days when we had a sporting boycott against South Africa.

There was a powerful piece in the Sunday Times yesterday by an Afghan woman speaking using a pseudonym about her experiences:

https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/how-taliban-silenced-afghanistan-womens-rights-cvxlgmvpw

Its some hideous perversion of Islam perhaps? I don't know.

I can’t understand the thinking behind this - it is so sexually arousing for men to hear or see anything female that they will sin, so the solution is to remove all women from society?

I’ve not seen it mentioned anywhere but we watch a lot of cricket in our house and the Afghanistan men’s team are breaking through in limited overs matches. Is there any way to use this as a lever? Not sure when the national team is due to play next but maybe some sort of protest there?
I’ll do a bit of digging

Sorry last para above from the Guardian article - it looked like it had kept l the formatting but evidently not.

Thanks for sharing @ArabellaScott - this is terrifying.

I'm amazed the international community is so quietly standing by on this - and yet I think the influence of this is evident the world over and especially in the UK , with VAWG rates soaring, Andrew Tate followers everywhere and even boys in school misogynistic attitudes and even violence against their female teachers.

We need to write to all relevant MPs, give money to relevant charities and join street marches - just need to find them/ publicise them/ organise them! Wonder what Pakistani women next door think about the whole situation and more worryingly, what do Pakistani men think - we can't have them getting ideas given their number and global spread and influence. I so fear for the future for girls and women.

Where are the Afghan men? They just seem so weak in all this, desperately fleeing to save themselves leaving their women and girls to live in this nightmare.

When they say women cannot speak in public as they regard women’s voices as a form of intimacy it is incredibly frightening yet the whole world acts like this is normal. There have been very few reactions of comments to what is happening and the Taliban are emboldened by this indifference. It is not only women but all human beings they are targeting. They must be held accountable.”

I'd never heard of Landays before, fascinating stuff. They seem similar to Koans but less abstract.
And I know most of us are aware, but for those who arent it bares repeating.

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/uk-news/jk-rowling-schindlers-list-moment-29073117
'Lord David Alton told the chamber how the writer and Lord Hintze "in a Schindler's List moment" came forward to help when veteran human rights lawyer Baroness Helena Kennedy needed money to rescue female lawyers - mainly judges - and their families.
Lord Alton said that, thanks to "spontaneous, generous and very substantial" private funding, "some 500 people were evacuated - 103 were women lawyers, all of whom, with their children and husbands, were on Taliban kill lists".'

I can't find any comment from leading Labour women. Why hasn't Anneliese Dodds, Yvette Cooper, Bridget Phillipson etc spoken out.
They all had much to say when US withdrew. Why the silence. Has anyone else seen anything.

I’m reading Vox at the moment in which women are limited to only speaking 100 words a day. It seems so far fetched and yet … these poor Afghan women are living in some kind of dystopian nightmare.