Afghan Women Pelted By Stones While Protesting Rape Law

Posted by Satyam Khanna, Think Progress at 8:35 AM on April 15, 2009.

Last month, Afghan President Hamid Karzai provoked international outrage when he signed legislation that effectively legalizes marital rape. Afghan women are trying to fight back, joining forces with women’s rights group and protesting the law. But yesterday, the women protesters were greeted by “largely male” counter-protesters:

A group of some 1,000 Afghans swarmed a demonstration of 300 women protesting against a new conservative marriage law on Wednesday. The women were pelted with small stones as police struggled to keep the two groups apart. […]

[O]thers shouted “Death to the slaves of the Christians!” Female police held hands around the group to create a protective barrier. … “You are a dog! You are not a Shiite woman!” one man shouted to a young woman in a headscarf holding aloft a banner that said “We don’t want Taliban law.” The woman did not shout back at the man, but told him: “This is my land and my people.”

Satyam Khanna is a Research Associate for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.