Majority of women if Afgan jails there for being victims of rape

[Monkeytrousers]

Glad the mainstream press have finally picked up on this

'astonishingly brave women - and Muslims too boot!' Gosh, thanks for pointing that out DaddyJ - had no idea there were actually any good Muslims.

I think there was mainstream coverage of this sort of outrage in the run-up to and the early stages of 'the war on terror'. I saw and read lots of features about Afghan women jailed - and executed - for 'adultery' / rape.

However, I suspect that it may have been played down in the interim times when it was expedient for us to be allowed to believe that things were improving for women since the interventions.

Or if that is too much of a conspiracy theory, perhaps the press has turned it's focus to atrocities elswhere, or that this has been 'done'.

ninedragons

Thank you for cheering me up, am having a miserable day, although clearly I shouldn't be moaning about it on this thread, of all places...

(And Blu, I think you are quite right that the oppression of women has dropped off the agenda. Because it was used as evidence that the other side were 'baddies' (which they were) but it's a bit embarrassing that 'our' side is continuing it.)

MB/Callisto, I will try and take it on board, thank you.

Monkeytrousers, no you didn't define 'Muslim state', that's the problem.
You just tossed it onto the thread and it had to be challenged.

If you are genuinely concerned about the women of Afghanistan
don't you think it would help if you knew a little about the country's history?
Particularly before you start pointing the finger of blame.

ruty, had to be done - certainly on a thread were 'Muslim' is short for 'Fundamentalist'.

Before the 'War on Terror' only a small handful of Muslim states recognised the Taleban rule as legitimate: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and I think UAE. It is a predicatble result that the 'WoT' has polarised many countries in the Islamic world...and without pressure fom wihin the muslim world, it is harder to support the women (and other democratic / secular movements) within it.

It doesn't affect how we should judge the treatment of women, but it is exasperating to recognise what our gvt, and allies, have done to impede the fight for their rights.

agreed, Blu.

No DJ, I defined it after - god will you stop this thrashing about. Move on!

"ruty, had to be done - certainly on a thread were 'Muslim' is short for 'Fundamentalist'."

This you your projection entirely. I'm not arguing with you anymore DJ. It's like shooting fish in a barrel

Just read this thread, and I do want to point the finger of blame, DJ, directly in the direction of those states which allow these practices.

Regardless of their history, or any previous alliance with the West, any defence of these imprisonments is abhorrent.

Any state which condones or practices these punishments is a fundamentalist state.
Inferring that posters have suggested that Muslim = fundamentalist is a poor response.

The thread was started to draw attention to the article, and the horrifying reality that in some Muslim states, consenting sex and rape are one and the same.

I find your reactions to the article very offensive, and your determination to turn the thread into an anti/pro Muslim debate is cheap and nasty, imo.

Also, DJ, the hypocrisy of your posts is staggering.

You are outraged by the use of the description of Muslim states, yet when it comes to your description of 'the west', you are happy to blame all westerners for the sins of those involved in the Cold War.

I have yet to see a post on this thread blaming all Muslims for the acts perpatrated by the states which jail women for being raped or committing adultery.

If you think I am projecting, well, tell me what you meant.

You are having a good time, you are shooting fish in a barrel -
so why the haste to abandon this discussion?
We are not arguing, just working out where you are coming from.

I checked for your definition of 'Muslim country' and, sorry, couldn't find it.

Turkey, Malaysia, Tunisia, Morocco are Muslim countries (depending on your definition!).
Are they all essentially the same as Afghanistan?

In the meantime, this thread gets bumped and more people become aware
of the plight of Afghani women which surely is a good thing.

well if Afghanistan was a wonderful, egalitarian paradise prior to the rise of the US funded Mujahedin ( which became the Taleben, to put it simplistically)I would like some evidence for that. And I would like DaddyJ to provide it - if you can.

Also - can we be clear here: there is a difference between Muslim countries and Islamist countries/ruling bodies. So it is that Turkey is a secular Muslim state but most of Afghanistan is Islamic since it is ruled by Islamist warlords and Talebani, not that American puppet Kharzai.

but, going back to the Op = is it really news? did we not know this already?

It is DJ. Very good. Thanks again.

Re this:

By Monkeytrousers on Tue 19-Aug-08 13:51:27
That was where I was first alerted to it MB. It is true of all Muslim states sadly.
By Martianbishop on Tue 19-Aug-08 13:24:58
These types of arrest are also not uncommon in parts of Pakestan

Obviously, you are wrong. Women don't get arrested for being raped in "all Muslim states", only in some of them.

I thought we agreed (or at least understood) here and herethat you do not know enough about Islam and Muslim countries in general to make that kind of sweeping generalization. Remember how you claimed previously that female genital mutilation ('female circumcision') was a Muslim tradition?

Can you please stop with the ignorant generalizations? Thenk you.

And thank you, even.

It would be interesting to discuss why such medieval practices such as OP's article are continuing in what is effectively an American puppet government.

I don't think that I made a generalisation given that I said 'In* some parts of pakestan.' I was not making generalisations.

A generalisation would have been 'In all parts of pakestan'

Thank you

sorry, if we are being pedantic, I said 'In some parts'

sheesh, try again 'In parts;' ie in parts, not in the whole!

so not a generalisation.

an analogy would be 'The BNP have had success in parts of the UK local council elections'

In parts.

Not a generalisation

because he IS a puppet - Kharzai has no real influence. Afghanistan is too tribal in its ways to ever succumb to some weird imposed US idea of democracy. And too hostile to the US.

Realistically, the fate of Afghani women was never the prime consideration of the so called liberation of Afghanistan. Nobody bothered the Taleban until 2001. They had been doing unspeakable things to women for years and had burned down all the girls schools - and closed the hospitals.

Anyway it is a depressing and all too familiar picture. Did anyone read last Saturday's Guardian piece on the burgeoning heroin trade in Afghanistan? it's going really well and accounts for one third of GDP. Taleban are in on it too - so much for moral high ground. It was a good article.

I am still waing for daddyj to illustrate how the west is responsible for turning the men of Afghanistan from angels to those described in the OP article but presumably he is just collating his evidence.

I read the bookseller of Kabul and was left with the feeling that if only they could fuck each other and make babies some of the men in Afghanistan would do without women altogher, their contempt of women was so great.