Home
Archive
Newsletters
Video
Blogs
Discuss
About
Search
Donate
Advertise

Selective Outrage

By Sonali Kolhatkar and James Ingalls, AlterNet. Posted March 30, 2006.


The Western world loudly opposed the death sentence given to a Christian convert in Afghanistan while ignoring the country's oppression of women.

Share and save this post:

      

      

Share on Facebook       

AlterNet Social Networks:
follow us on twitter
find us on Facebook

In Special Coverage

Belief:
Are the "New Atheists" As Bad as Christian Fundamentalists?
Frank Schaeffer

Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
How a Public Jobs Program Could Put America Back on Track
Julianne Malveaux

DrugReporter:
Pot Is More Mainstream Than Ever, So Why Is Legalization Still Taboo?
Steven Wishnia

Environment:
Why We Need Bees and More People Becoming Organic Beekeepers
Makenna Goodman

Food:
The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America's Emerging Battle Over Food Rights
Makenna Goodman

Health and Wellness:
New York May Stop Heartless Health Insurers from Dropping Coverage When It Stops Being Profitable
William Ehart

Immigration:
NYC Marathon Raises Question of Who Is American Enough?
James E. Johnson, Jr.

Media and Technology:
Focusing on Fort Hood Killer's Beliefs Is an Easy Out to Avoid the Deeper Reasons for the Massacre
Mark Ames

Movie Mix:
The Yes Men: Pranksters Out to Fix the World
Mark Engler

Politics:
What Michelle and Barack's Marriage Has in Common with 56 Million Other Ones
Annabelle Gurwitch

Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Fetus-Shaped Potatoes? Going Undercover Inside the Weird World of Right-Wing Abortion Foes
Ann Neumann

Rights and Liberties:
"My Kids Want to Hide Their Identity; They're Scared Someone Will Attack Us": U.S. Muslims Being Targeted
Jaisal Noor

Sex and Relationships:
Instant Sex: Has the Digital Age Destroyed Relationships or Made Them Better?
Vanessa Richmond

Take Action:
G-20 Meetings: Nothing Much Happened in the Suites, and There Was Too Much Punch in the Streets
Laura Flanders

Water:
Why Natural Gas Is Not a Clean Energy Panacea
Stan Cox

World:
With Unemployment at 40 Percent, Afghan Teens Enlist in Army, Police
Lal Aqa Sherin

Advertisement
Upcoming AlterNet stories on Digg

Daily media reports over the case of Afghan Christian convert Abdul Rahman have revealed a sudden concern over Afghanistan's repressive human rights environment. But routine human rights reports of the ongoing oppression of Afghan women, suppression of the media and underlying Western complicity have barely been noticed.

In the West, government officials, media pundits and right-wing commentators have expressed vocal concern over the life of one Afghan man who chose, 16 years ago, to convert from Islam to Christianity. Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Rahman's arrest for apostasy (renunciation of faith), a crime that carries the death penalty was "beyond belief." U.S. President George W. Bush said he was "deeply troubled" by the case. The New York Times opined that "the case is more than deeply troubling, it's barbaric."

These same officials, whose governments underwrite the Afghan government, were apparently so moved by Rahman's situation that they pushed for President Hamid Karzai to have Rahman released. In what the Associated Press called "an unusual move," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned Karzai to convey "in the strongest possible terms" her government's wish for a "favorable resolution." Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper also appealed to Karzai and got positive results.

Three days before Rahman was released, Harper said, "[Karzai] conveyed to me that we don't have to worry about [Rahman's execution. He] assured me that what's alarmed most of us will be worked out quickly … in a way that fully respects religious rights, religious freedoms and human rights." Not surprisingly, the case was dismissed on March 27 due to "insufficient evidence.

Prior to the dismissal, Bush boasted, "We have got influence in Afghanistan, and we are going to use it to remind them that there are universal values." In other words, the Afghan courts are free to come to their own verdict, so long as the U.S. agrees with it. On CNN's Late Edition, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., warned, "Let's hope they make the right decision. If they don't, I think there are going to be a great many problems."

Behind Roberts' words was an unmistakable threat that the United States and other Western governments would withdraw their support for the fragile Karzai government. Gary Bauer, president of the conservative group American Values, sent an email to 250,000 supporters warning that Rahman's execution would "result in a complete collapse in support for the war." The New York Times echoed these sentiments: "What's the point of the United States' propping up the government of Afghanistan if it's not even going to pretend to respect basic human rights?" The newspaper's editors threatened, "If Afghanistan wants to return to the Taliban days, it can do so without the help of the United States."

The implication is clear: By "liberating" Afghanistan, the Christian West now stakes a claim in its internal affairs. Recognizing this influence, vocal leaders have discovered a sudden interest in international law and universal values -- but it is a piecemeal recognition, avoiding the systemic issues of human rights violations seen in Afghanistan on a daily basis. Before one applauds the outcome, it is important to understand that Rahman's religious freedom case is a symptom of a much larger problem.

While Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins laments that "such a 'trial' is a flagrant violation of Article 18 of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights," he does not cite Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the right to education. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) reports that the number of educational facilities for women has actually been reduced in the past year. In southern Afghanistan, the United Nations reports about 300 girls' schools were burned down in 2005. Nationwide, women's literacy rates are half that of men. Some provinces report literacy rates of 3 percent for women.

For Afghanistan's approximately 15 million women, "universal values" do not include women's rights. A UNICEF report released last week warned of the grim statistics concerning Afghan women and children:

[A]n estimated 600 children under the age of 5 die every day in Afghanistan, mostly due to preventable illnesses, some 50 women die every day due to obstetric complications, less than half of primary school age girls attend classes, while a quarter of primary school age children undertake some form of work, and an estimated one-third of women are married before the age of 18.
In 2001, similar statistics were routinely reported as a justification for the war on Afghanistan and women's "liberation." Yet, five years later, the situation has scarcely improved.

The case of Abdul Rahman has drawn attention to Afghanistan's judicial system, which has been in dire need of reform since it was set up at the end of 2001. But, other than Rahman's case, most commentators have a meager understanding of how this system has affected the lives of Afghans, especially women, its greatest victims. Amnesty International notes that "the current criminal justice system is simply unwilling or unable to address issues of violence against women. At the moment (October 2003) it is more likely to violate the rights of women than to protect and uphold their rights (emphasis added)."

The main legal document of Afghanistan is the constitution, drafted and passed in early 2004 with the oversight of then U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. In March 2004, we warned of the constitution's ambivalent stance toward women's rights:
[P]ossibly negating any rights of women is the ominous inclusion of the supremacy of Islamic law in the constitution: "in Afghanistan, no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam." As if to underscore the threat this statement presents, the Chairman of the constitutional convention, … Sibghatullah Mojadidi, said to the women delegates at the convention, "Even God has not given you equal rights because under his decision two women are counted as equal to one man."
Islamic law in the constitution was meant to appease extremist right-wing factions, including the Chief Justice Fazl Al Shinwari. Shinwari is a close ally of the fundamentalist warlord and U.S.-Saudi protege of the early 1990s Abdul-Rabb al-Rasul Sayyaf, now a member of the Afghan parliament. Human Rights Watch reported that Shinwari and his deputy "do not appear to act independently, the first requirement of a judge, instead making political judgments in close collaboration with warlords like Sayyaf."

Shinwari has taken full advantage of his position and the new constitution to appoint judges who share his extreme beliefs to the lower courts, and handing out misogynist decisions on cases involving women, particularly in family law. He refuses to appoint women to high court positions, saying, "If a woman becomes a top judge, then what would happen when she has a menstruation cycle once a month, and she cannot go to the mosque?"

Shinwari has banned cable television in Afghanistan, arrested journalists for blasphemy, and forced Women's Affairs minister Sima Samar to resign her post after she was charged with blasphemy for making "irresponsible statements" criticizing Shari'a law. As with apostasy, the penalty for blasphemy is death. Yet, we hear no criticisms from the West regarding the court's numerous medieval blasphemy accusations.

The consequences for women of such a repressive justice system have been dire. The AIHRC noted 150 cases of self-immolation among women in the western region of the country in 2005 alone. Women who burn themselves to death often do so as a result of forced marriages, which are sanctioned by extremist interpretations of Shari'a law and are occurring at an alarming rate. Cases of violence against women are also rising. A young woman named Gulbar in the Baghdis province was repeatedly abused by her husband, who finally set fire to her. While she attempts to recover from extreme burns covering 40 percent of her body, no steps have been taken by local authorities to hold her husband accountable.

In late 2005, the well-respected 25-year-old poet Nadia Anjuman was beaten by her husband and died of injuries. U.N. spokesperson Adrian Edwards condemned the killing: "The death of Nadia Anjuman … is indeed tragic and a great loss to Afghanistan. It needs to be investigated, and anyone found responsible needs to be dealt with in a proper court of law."

The New York Times sarcastically commented that if Rahman was to be executed, "maybe Afghanistan should also return to stoning women to death for adultery." Perhaps the Times will recall last spring, when 29-year-old Amina of Badakhshan province was stoned to death after being accused of adultery by her husband and convicted by local officials.There was no international outcry from the United States or other foreign countries and no attempts to get President Karzai to enforce universal human rights.

It is likely that, given the current atmosphere in Afghanistan, justice will not be served for Gulbar, Nadia Anjuman, Amina or the uncounted women who have been stifled by a judicial system that was designed to work against them. The complicit silence from Western media and government officials indicates that Bush's "influence in Afghanistan" is not worth exercising to protect women's rights.

Note that Bush administration officials have remained entirely silent on the fate of a brave Afghan woman named Malalai Joya. Joya is one of the youngest members of Afghanistan's parliament and a fierce critic of U.S.-backed fundamentalist warlords. She has survived four assassination attempts and has received over 100 death threats. The only action the Karzai government has taken recently is to withdraw the security guards that she was previously provided.

In early 2005, the position of U.N. independent expert on human rights in Afghanistan, held by Cherif Bassiouni, was eliminated at the request of the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Just before he was fired, Bassiouni had published a report describing "arbitrary arrest, illegal detentions and abuses committed by the United States-led coalition forces," as well as activities by these forces which "fall under the internationally accepted definition of torture."

Abdul Rahman's case is not unique -- it provides an example of the fear with which most ordinary Afghans, especially women, live. Even if one were to take seriously the Western concern for religious freedom, there appears to be less concern for the everyday violations of women's humanity ensconced in the Afghan legal and political system, or for the criminal behavior of Washington's own troops in Afghanistan. Most expressions of outrage at Rahman's plight disregard the human rights violations for which the West is directly responsible and reveal an unstated contempt for the rights of women, the most common victims of the current Afghan justice system.

Digg!    Share on facebook   submit to reddit    Bookmark on Delicious   Stumble This  

Sonali Kolhatkar and James Ingalls are co-directors of the Afghan Women's Mission, and the authors of the forthcoming book, "Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence" (Seven Stories, 2006).

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »


Advertisement
Advertisement

 

Comments Turn comments off sitewide Give us feedback »
Comments closed.
The comments for this story have been closed. Thank you to everyone who participated.
View:
On the Nature of Religious Oppression
Posted by: Fang-Face Dreamweaver on Mar 30, 2006 3:30 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As near as I can tell, all oppressive relgions to date have been patriarchic and misogynistic. Islamic and Christian ultra-conservatism are certainly both so. In recent years, however, christo-fanatics have squealed, from time to time, about an anti-Christian crusade around the world. I infer that the publicity about this incident stems from that. Of course christo-fanatics will savage their islamo-fanatic brethren for attacking one of their own, but will remain silent about those elements of oppressive Islam that mirror the ultra-conservative prejudices of Christianity.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Honestly...
Posted by: Allison on Mar 30, 2006 6:15 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...I've never heard about any of this. It's been very poorly covered in the media... and I've been reading Alternet almost daily for a couple of years and I didn't see it being exposed HERE either!

Good to see RAWA is still fighting the good fight. Clearly I should be visiting their site more often to see the real situation in Afghanistan.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: Honestly... Posted by: BlueTigress
Great Article!!
Posted by: janvdb on Mar 30, 2006 6:22 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You are SO right.

It is sickening the way our government used and then abandoned the cause of the suffering women of Aghanistan, as it suited their agenda.

Women's rights are human rights!!

And it's not just about "helping others." It is the downbeaten situation of many Middle Eastern and African women which is directly related to the high rates of birth which persist in those places.

Those high rates of birth feed directly into the rapid increase of the labor force, after a shorter lag than you may expect -- 12 to 15 years. When an economy cannot generate sufficient jobs -- which require investment, education, and social and physical infrastructure -- to match the rate of increase in the labor force, high unemployment is an unavoidable result.

High rates of youth unemployment have been shown to be highly correllated with unrest, riots, wars and terrorism. Population Action International has recently produced a paper called The Security Demographic which goes over the relevant research.

We can never expect a stable, peaceful world as long as the mistreatment of women causes these high rates of birth, high rates of youth unemployment and underinvestment in the education of each child, which lead to violence, war and terrorism.

Any leader who thinks that "women's issues" are marginal is an idiot and a dangerous idiot.

We need a complete re-structuring of our foreign policy, following the lead of Europe, to focus on humanitarian investment in women's health, early childhood education and the alleviation of root causes of war and terrorism -- youth unemployment.

The violence, the bigotry, the aggressive, disrespectful, polarizing attacks, massacres and torture carried on around the world by our military are destroying our standing in the world and creating enemies.

We need a WHOLE NEW FOREIGN POLICY and that policy needs to focus first and foremost on women's health and women's rights.

For our own damn good.

Jan VanDenBerg

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: Great Article!! Posted by: Aussie Kim
otto
Posted by: otto on Mar 30, 2006 7:34 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I'm side-stepping the main point, which I basically agree with, but the article mentions that the case was dropped against the Christian "due to insufficient evidence". I suspect that 90 percent of us Christians in the world could escape prosecution for the same "crime" - they wouldn't find enough evidence of us being Christians.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: otto Posted by: Ambassador
Intolerance is Unacceptable
Posted by: NoPCZone on Mar 30, 2006 8:29 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The keystone of the values that we hold dear is that your personal freedom extends to the point where it impinges upon other people's rights.

I am so tired of our government rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, making deals with repressive governments. The list is long and shameful and has never done us one bit of good. It, in fact, has probably done more harm to the image of the US than any other single action it has taken.

Maybe my memory is flawed, but I remember a President that put the world on notice that Human Rights would be a cornerstone of our foreign policy. Implementation was not perfect, but it had a significant effect. We could use some of that now.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The easy answer?
Posted by: ABetterFuture on Mar 30, 2006 12:16 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It is much easier to whisk one man out of Afghanistan than it is to overcome entrenched, fundamentalist, and largely popular views and laws based on religion (and occasionally interpretations thereof).

Ground has been gained for Afghan women. As a baseline, I invite you to compare the number of women in Afghan government pre-Taliban to post-Taliban. Just because their government and society has not gone from RPG'ing scary 9,000 year old Buddhist statues to women in business suits and high heals in four years, doesn't mean that going from RPG'ing scary 9,000 y.o. Buddhist statues to women in parliament isn't progress. There are also women in cabinet positions (not just having been shoved in their husband's cabinets for showing too much toe nail, though I'm sure that still happens. and shouldn't).

Getting one man out of a country we (NATO) still (largely) control is a piece of cake, compared to changing a society. Not that we technically ought to be in the business of changing societies per se, but the stark contrast holds up nonetheless, and provides an easy answer to the question "Why did they whisk out a Christian convert, when the rest of the world isn't perfect yet???"

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: The easy answer? Posted by: janvdb
» No one seems to know... Posted by: BlueTigress
Religious Freedom?
Posted by: Cathyblj on Mar 30, 2006 1:09 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I seriously doubt anyone in the U.S. would have paid any attention if the man had been sentenced to death for converting to Buddhism, or anything other than Christianity. Bush claims he wants to spread freedom and democracy around the world, but obviously Christianity is what he really wants to spread.

It's too bad that Christianity (in its present form) is not concerned with women's rights.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

war is bad policy
Posted by: gladwyn on Mar 30, 2006 4:47 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Its important to consider violence in its larger context.

The Iraqi Ayotollah has issued an order to murder gays.
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/03/1808863.php
And after the US took over we scrapped the Iraqi rules about impounding automobiles in traffic violations. So the fatality and injury rate for the poor, children, and the elderly, who walk and bicycle, has reached epidemic promotions in the last three years. And news of the civil war at 600 deaths a month has already been reported in some places for two years. Death squads, similar to our contra program in El Salvador, roam freely through the curfews. Like The Quiet American one wonders who's really responsible

Women are but one important consequence of war. There are many other evil consequences that result from the need to remove one of our ex employees from office on a pretext. But like the petro economy its distant and easy to drive by with our blinkers set on religion. We need to look at alternatives beyond war.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Calling the Kettle Black
Posted by: Ambassador on Mar 30, 2006 4:54 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I find it quite interesting the amount of time spent by the U.S. government in chastising the human rights record of other countries. As long as the U.S. carries on its illegal occupation and genocide of the Hawaiian Kingdom, President Bush's waging of war in the name of freedom and democracy remains nothing more than a lie. It's oppression of the Hawaiian people and the media suppression of this issue is an international travisty. But because it's the U.S. Government, bad boy on the block, no other country is willing to hold it accountable.
U.S. Public Law 103-150 is a confession statement to its criminal act. No matter how many ribbons and balloons that they might tie to this document, it is the confession of an international criminal who does not feel that it should be brought to justice.
The U.N. refuses to address our peaceful efforts to right this wrong. Yet, at the request of the U.S., it will justify war as the acceptable method to address international issues.
It is easy to point a finger at someone else and call them barbaric to draw attention away from ones self. Peaceful resolution is no longer politically correct. It is simply a mechanical point to be addressed on the way to war.
By the faith that the U.S. President proclaims, his speeches about freedom and democracy, makes him a liar before his God. If he is willing to lie before his God, what good is his word to man?
The issue of woman's rights in Mid Eastern societies is a religious matter. Keeping fellow Christians prisoner in the U.S., is also a religious matter. Is there anyone willing to call the U.S. on the carpet for its human rights policy?
It is amazing that any country would take the U.S. serious about human rights records when the U.S. has skeletons in the closet of its own.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: Calling the Kettle Black Posted by: Aussie Kim
The fundies want to do much the same here.
Posted by: wli on Mar 30, 2006 5:52 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is no failure. It's the intentional result. The Taliban has more in common with the GOP than the GOP has with the rest of the US. The GOP knows it, and that's why this is happening.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Don't forget that the Taliban have nearly recouped their loss of control in Afganistan to pre-911
Posted by: maxpayne on Mar 30, 2006 6:25 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
levels. It's just that a puppet Karzai leadership coupled with a totally corrupt media here in the U.S. are doing their job of obstructing truth and justice from the American people who in their outrage and better knowledge would otherwise have none of it.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Shari'a law/Koranic law
Posted by: BlueTigress on Apr 8, 2006 9:47 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
See my comment above.

Adding to that, one thing that drives me nuts about Islam is that no one can quite seem to agree on what the Koran says about women's rights. When you listen to imams and other scholars that are in Europe or America, they insist that Islam is quite equal-opportunity and that Shari'a law backs this up.

Other scholars insist that Shari'a law is mostly codifying old nomadic tribal law and that it really is no base for a true Islamic society.

Okay people, which one is it??? Please explain to this poor American woman who is trying to make sense of it all which one is the most true representation of what Islam really is.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

  • AlterNetYour turn

Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.


Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.

Advertisement
Advertisement