Misbah's mother is not pursuing custody

[JanH]

Guardian report

"A combination of ill-health, the emotional strain of the legal case and the recent birth of her latest child were all thought to be reasons why Mrs Campbell had stopped the legal action. She was believed to have had a strong chance of winning her case and, if she had, it would have forced Misbah to return to Scotland."

What about the stepfather locking the mother and baby out of the house in the pouring rain in November? It's not exactly a stable happy home environment, is it?

She's going to be on Radio 4 on wednesday being interviewed for something like It's my Story.

If they run another trailer, I'll post here so people know what time she's on.

I remember overhearing that one of her grievances against her mother is that she was forced to wear second hand clothes. Blimey I thought, I'll be losing custody of my kids then. (That's a flippant comment, btw, I know there's a lot more to this odd case.)

But she wan't allowed any kind of contact with her siblings with her mother was she.

She was forced to change her name....I was thinking about this, I was incredibley ticked off when my husband said he'd like me to take his surname (it's not actually an islamic thing and I'm really attached to my name as it happens....).

She wasn't allowed to practice her religion.

I think her father means that Misbah at 12/13 is able to decide which direction her education should take. Which I think is fair enough. My younger sister begged and pleaded with my mother to send her ot a madrassa in India when about 10 (my mother refused point blank), and my sister is still bitter about the lost education (althoguh she graduated from the LSE with a very good degree).

Also in India I know that the various Abaya's are considered the hieght of fashion, every Muslim girls wears one, it's considered rather chich....(I used to go shopping in my cotton pyjamas when in India thanks to my beautiful abaya). Tbh I've seen 12 year old girls wear worse here, I'd imagine Misbah would look out of place in Lahore in pedal pushers and cropped top (nothing wrong with either, but not so fashionable in Pakistan I would think).

Also footage of Misbahs older sister do not show her to be covered head to toe in the living room curtains, so I'm not terribly convinced of Misbah's sad and sorrty fate (as depicted by the british media). She was actually wearing a really lovely outfit and I was rather annoyed I couldn't get a better look at the outfit to copy.... (wish she'd stood up and given us a twirl).

Pruni, I'm a Glasgwegian atheist, but I think even I would rather wear a burkah and study at a madrassa than live in Stornaway! Especially in this weather. Apologies to any Stornaway MNers.

Snap!

I thought the same thing.

I thought, 'Shit, if I were a teenager, and I were stuck in Stornoway, I'd want to live in Lahore, too!'

Why do people think all Pakistanis marry off their daughters at 13 and don't educate them, or that all the men are tyrants?

Nothing could be further from the truth!

One of my best friends is Pakistani. She asked for an arranged marriage at the age of 22 - AFTER she'd completed her master's degree in anthropology, with the requirements being that the candidates needed to be educated to master's level or above and live or had lived in the West.

She's been married happily to 'Imran' for 8 years now, living in Denver, and an academic as well as a mother of 3.

The women in her family are all educated professionals.

Believe me, she wears the trousers in the family!

Edam, I am a bit confused here, for this raises some Qs

1. Is it a crime to have been in touch with someone accused of terrorism?

1. Even though such an activist lives in a third world country capital, under a very strong military regime that carries out the bidding of the US and UK not just to the letter, but much beyond?

1. Is it a crime to be sympathetic to the Taliban?

It's not a crime to be sympathetic to the Taliban but I wouldn't want my DD to go and live with someone who was and would fight tooth and nail to ensure that didn't happen.

Quite. They are not exactly known for their equal treatment of women , are they? And while Islam does not equate to mysogeny, their interpretation of it did.

their interpretation is beyond the point. Do people have the right to be sympathetic to them, and not to be called terrorists, especially when the military government would have had them watched and investigated thoroughly.

actually I think being ' sympathetic to the Taleban' is verging on criminal.

They closed all women's hospitals, denied all females the right to any education, practised the most gross forms of oppression and abuse all under the lying cloak of religious practice. Makes my blood boil.

I agree with Caligula, its not a good enviroment for a child.

what the Taleban did?
__

They stopped the warlords from murder and rape and loot.

They stopped poppy cultivation.

They made the cities and the land safe for all legitimate activity.

They had four successive years of drought, due to which there was incredible hardship.

They closed the educational institutions because these had been infiltrated by corrupt ideologies. They had intended to reopen these when the economy permitted.

One can disagree with the closure. One can disagree with the harsh punishments, but criminal supporting them is not.

What has the coalition achieved?
_

It brought in the criminal warlords first of the Northern Alliance, and then every faction.

Afghanistan is now the top record producer of poppy.

Thay also shot a woman who was out in the streets with her child, desparatly seeking medical care for the infant. She was breaking the law because she was out alone. so they shot her. The child needed medical care. Nice.

They are also known to have allowed a woman to die from lack of medical care following a severe burn. She couldn't be seen by a male doctor you see. Very nice.

They would also beat women in the streets if they showed too much of their ancles. They did the beating in public, without trial with bicycle chains. Very kindly.

Oh and banned girls from going to school. The economy argument is spureous, they educated the boys.

As the mother of a girl I would find as association with these peole to be totaly abhorant.

and their interpretation of islam is totaly the point! They were in charge and returned the situation of woman to a point which has beewn decribed by Islamic and Koranic schollars as equivalent to that of women living in the time before the Prophet.

Islam gives women specific rights which were systimaticaly ignored by the Taliban./ So it it totaly the point

I agree, I would be terrifyed for my dd to be associated with people who were so cruel to women. Women had no quality of life under the Taliban.

" safe for all legitimate activity"?

so that includes murdering women and girls on a daily basis then. As a legitimate activity.

and of course under the Taleban, mb, women were not allowed to work so there were NO female doctors. So it was a deliberate systematic way of eliminating women unless I am missing something.

Very good point Donnie.

The beatings and killings were not wide spread. These were isolated cases, as compared to the times of warlordism, and the coalitions blue-eyed boys, the Northern Alliance.

They made very serious mistakes in interpretation, but their harshness was nowhere near that achieved by their successors.

The point was whether Mr Khwaja should have been described as a terrorist symathiser. I said if he had been one, he would long ago have been rendered

The Taliban were and are disgusting scum who make the proponents of apartheid look like the model of kindness and tolerance. There were the equivalent of Nazis, except their victims were women instead of Jews. But maybe we should be sympathetic to them, after all, I believe they made the trains run on time, and were very good for the economy.

Feminist Daily News Wire
June 18, 1999
Amnesty International Documents Taliban's Crimes
In its annual report released yesterday, Amnesty International documented human rights abuses in 142 countries and territories, including the abused committed by Afghanistan's Taliban regime.

According to Amnesty, the Taliban massacred thousands of civilians and tortured thousands more in 1998. The report documented the Taliban's attacks surrounding Mazar-e-Sharif, where Taliban guards "deliberately and systematically killed thousands of ethnic Hazara civilians." It also recorded the lives of thousands killed "deliberately and arbitrarily" by various warring factions and noted that more than 1,000 people lives were taken by land mines.

Amnesty International also charged the Taliban with detailing and torturing Hazara, Tajik, Uzbek and Panjsheri men and boys. "Almost all prisoners detained on suspicion of opposing the Taliban were reported to have been tortured or ill-treated," read the report.

Regarding the Taliban's treatment of women, Amnesty wrote "Tens of thousands of women effectively remained prisoners in their homes. Fears of punishment prevents tens of thousands of women from seeking education and employment or leaving home without a close male relative."

Women and men caught defying the Taliban's harsh edicts were publicly humiliated and beaten by officers of the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Other punishments included eight floggings, fourteen public amputations, and ten public executions .

Amnesty International 1999 Annual Report

RAWA.org is a good website too. However, it is primarily run by women (and is about women) so must be full of lies - what say you peacedove?

Aloha: [quote]Taliban's attacks surrounding Mazar-e-Sharif, where Taliban guards "deliberately and systematically killed thousands of ethnic Hazara civilians.[/quote]

This was indeed the initial report. However, later, much later, when mass graves were found and the Westwas so excited by the find, it transpired that it was the Taleban boys who had been massacred by the Northern alliance in Mazar-e Sharif. The mas graves turned up not Hazara, but Taleban boys.

I do not have the link now, but someone should be able to find it.

A great deal of the atrocities attributed to the Taleban is nothing other than vile propaganda.

As I said, Nazis in turbans and beards.
Taliban restrictions and mistreatment of women include the:

1- Complete ban on women's work outside the home, which also applies to female teachers, engineers and most professionals. Only a few female doctors and nurses are allowed to work in some hospitals in Kabul.

2- Complete ban on women's activity outside the home unless accompanied by a mahram (close male relative such as a father, brother or husband).

3- Ban on women dealing with male shopkeepers.

4- Ban on women being treated by male doctors.

5- Ban on women studying at schools, universities or any other educational institution. (Taliban have converted girls' schools into religious seminaries.)

6- Requirement that women wear a long veil (Burqa), which covers them from head to toe.

7- Whipping, beating and verbal abuse of women not clothed in accordance with Taliban rules, or of women unaccompanied by a mahram.

8- Whipping of women in public for having non-covered ankles.

9- Public stoning of women accused of having sex outside marriage. (A number of lovers are stoned to death under this rule).

10- Ban on the use of cosmetics. (Many women with painted nails have had fingers cut off).

11- Ban on women talking or shaking hands with non-mahram males.

12- Ban on women laughing loudly. (No stranger should hear a woman's voice).

13- Ban on women wearing high heel shoes, which would produce sound while walking. (A man must not hear a woman's footsteps.)

14- Ban on women riding in a taxi without a mahram.

15- Ban on women's presence in radio, television or public gatherings of any kind.

16- Ban on women playing sports or entering a sport center or club.

17- Ban on women riding bicycles or motorcycles, even with their mahrams.

18- Ban on women's wearing brightly colored clothes. In Taliban terms, these are "sexually attracting colors."

19- Ban on women gathering for festive occasions such as the Eids, or for any recreational purpose.

20- Ban on women washing clothes next to rivers or in a public place.

21- Modification of all place names including the word "women." For example, "women's garden" has been renamed "spring garden".

22- Ban on women appearing on the balconies of their apartments or houses.

23- Compulsory painting of all windows, so women can not be seen from outside their homes.

24- Ban on male tailors taking women's measurements or sewing women's clothes.

25- Ban on female public baths.

26- Ban on males and females traveling on the same bus. Public buses have now been designated "males only" (or "females only").

27- Ban on flared (wide) pant-legs, even under a burqa.

28- Ban on the photographing or filming of women.

29- Ban on women's pictures printed in newspapers and books, or hung on the walls of houses and shops.

hardly small numbers involved.

Stidies showed that over 50% of women in Afghanistan under the taliban suffered clinical depression and anxiety, and m not bloody surprised, they were traeted worse than animals