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THE BELOW (updated 12 MAR 2022)
When one hurts or kills a women
one hurts or kills hummanity and is an antrocitie.
Gino d'Artali
and: My mother (1931-1997) always said to me <Mi
figlio, non esistono notizie <vecchie> perche puoi imparare qualcosa da
qualsiasi notizia.> Translated: <My son, there is no such thing as so
called 'old' news because you can learn something from any news.>
Gianna d'Artali
Al Jazeera
9 May 2022
By Famima Faizi
<<By Afghan students run underground book club to keep dreams alive. A
group of Afghan students runs an underground club in Kabul to learn,
read and write their own stories amid expanding Taliban curbs.
On May 8 last year, 17-year-old Tahira and her classmate were discussing
their plans for the Eid holidays when a powerful bomb went off at their
school in Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood. She was thrown to the
other side of the street by the intensity of the explosion. Two more
explosions followed targeting Sayed ul-Shuhada High School for girls and
leaving 90 people dead, most of them female students. <One moment I was
talking to my friend. Next, I was lying in a hospital, and all wired
up,> Tahira recalls.
Three pieces of shrapnel had struck her legs. <Two of them were removed
and one became part of my body,> Tahira, who does not wish to reveal her
full name, told Al Jazeera. No group claimed responsibility for the
series of blasts. The neighbourhood in Kabul’s western suburb – home to
the predominantly Shia Hazara community – had been the target of brutal
attacks in recent years, particularly by the ISIL (ISIS) group. In 2020,
24 people were killed, including newborn babies and their mothers in an
attack on a maternity ward. ISIL claimed responsibility for that attack.
Politicians and foreign missions in Afghanistan called it an attack on
<education>, but to many of the students, it was an attack on their very
identities as young women and Hazaras.
A year after the bombing
A year after the bombing the families still are mourning the death of
their children, and the students who survived are yet to heal from the
trauma. Tahira, who was in the 11th grade, says the school lacked
resources, but there was hope. <We had dreams, and that had made the
situation bearable,> she says. But in the months following the blasts,
as United States troops started to withdraw after 20 years of
occupation, the security situation worsened. The Taliban armed group
retook power in August 2021 after the pullout of the US soldiers
triggered a collapse of the Afghan government led by President Ashraf
Ghani. The violent and chaotic collapse of the West-backed previous
government brought an abrupt end to Tahira’s education. Immediately
after coming to power, the Taliban promised women’s rights and freedom
of the press. But nine months since the takeover, high schools for girls
remain closed and public spaces shrinking for Afghan women as the group
has expanded curbs.
....
But Tahira and 29 other students from Sayed ul-Shuhada High School
remain unwilling to give up on their education despite the unrelen-ting
attacks and renewed Taliban restrictions. They have worked a way around
the Taliban’s ban on girls’ education, by attending an underground book
club where students gather to learn, read, and even write their own
stories.
The book club
The book club, founded by a group of eight civil activists – some of
them students, but not all of them – organises reading sessions every
Saturday. They are held in a discreet location in western Kabul to avoid
Taliban retribution. Tareq Qassemi, a co-founder of the club, says the
global media focus shifted overnight due to the war in Ukraine.
<Afghanistan is a dead story, but we, the people of Afghanistan, must
take ownership,> he said. Qassemi believes girls are the future of the
country and must be the narrators of their own stories. Living to Tell
the Tale, the first volume of the autobiography of Colombian writer
Gabriel García Márquez, was one of the first books that the girls
read.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/9/afghan-students-run-underground-book-club-to-keep-dreams-alive
Al Jazeera
8 May 2022
By Ruchi Kumar and Hikmat Noori
<<Afghan women deplore Taliban’s new order to cover faces in public. In
their latest decree, the Taliban say it is ‘required for all respectable
Afghan women to wear a hijab’.
The Taliban has issued yet another decree imposing further restrictions
on Afghan women, and criminalising their clothing.
While the Taliban have always imposed restrictions to govern the bodies
of Afghan women, the decree is the first for this regime where criminal
punishment is assigned for violation of the dress code for women. The
Taliban’s recently reinstated Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and
Prevention of Vice announced on Saturday that it is <required for all
respectable Afghan women to wear a hijab>, or headscarf. The ministry,
in a statement, identified the chadori (the blue-coloured Afghan burqa
or full-body veil) as the <best hijab> of choice. Also acceptable as a
hijab, the statement declared, is a long black veil covering a woman
from head to toe. The ministry statement provided a description: <Any
garment covering the body of a woman is considered a hijab, provided
that it is not too tight to represent the body parts nor is it thin
enough to reveal the body.> Punishment was also detailed: Male guardians
of offending women will receive a warning, and for repeated offences
they will be imprisoned. <If a woman is caught without a hijab, her
mahram (a male guardian) will be warned. The second time, the guardian
will be summoned [by Taliban officials], and after repeated summons, her
guardian will be imprisoned for three days,> according to the statement.
Akif Muhajir, a spokesman for the ministry, said that government
employees who violate the hijab rule will be fired.
And male guardians found guilty of repeated offences <will be sent to
the court for further punishment>, he said.
‘Third-class citizens’
The new decree is the latest in a series of edicts restricting women’s
freedoms imposed since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan last
summer. News of the decree was received with widespread condemnation and
outrage by Afghan women and activists. “Why have they reduced women to
[an] object that is being sexualised?” asked Marzia, a 50-year-old
university professor from Kabul. The professor’s name has been changed
to protect her identity, as she fears Taliban repercussions for
expressing her views publicly. <I am a practicing Muslim and value what
Islam has taught me. If, as Muslim men, they have a problem with my
hijab, then they should observe their own hijab and lower their gaze,>
she said. <Why should we be treated like third-class citizens because
they cannot practice Islam and control their sexual desires?> the
professor asked, anger evident in her voice. As an unmarried woman who
looks after her mother, Marzia does not have a mahram. She is the sole
breadwinner in her small family. <I am unmarried, and my father died
very long ago, and I look after my mother,> she said. <The Taliban
killed my brother, my only mahram, in an attack 18 years ago. Would they
now have me borrow a mahram for them [to] punish me next time?> she
asked.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/8/taliban-make-burqa-mandatory-for-afghan-women
The Guardian
8 May 2022
Supported by
guardian.org
By Zahra Joya and Rukhshana reporters in Kabul
<<Despite everything that has happened to her country since the Taliban
seized power last August, 29-year old Nafisa still never believed there
would come a day when she would be unable to feel the sun on her face as
she walked the streets of Kabul. Yet on Saturday, the Taliban’s
sinisterly named ministry for the propagation of virtue ordered that
Nafisa, along with millions of women across Afghanistan, should ideally
not leave the house at all. If they do, they must be fully veiled and
never show their faces in public. <The Taliban has no plans for
Afghanistan other than imposing restrictions on women,> says Nafisa, who
says she rejects the Taliban’s latest attempts to push Afghan women into
the shadows. <I do not accept the obligatory hijab and I will never wear
a burqa.> The restrictions require women to either wear a burqa, the
head-to-toe covering that allows women to see through only a small
grille at eye-level or a full niqab, which covers the face but not the
eyes. Most Afghan women already wear some form of hijab, but many in
cities such as Kabul previously covered only their hair. Along with the
decree, the Taliban issued a detailed set of restrictions and
punishments that leave women’s family members responsible for their
compliance and facing fines and jail if they are seen in public
uncovered. If women working for the government go out without their face
veiled they will be fired and Taliban fighters will also lose their jobs
if their female relatives fail to obey the new restrictions. For many
women in Kabul, the decree comes on the back of a campaign of harassment
and violence at the hands of the Taliban and their street enforcers that
has been mounting in recent months. Young women in the capital who
before last summer had never lived under Taliban rule say the religious
police force has been emboldened, roaming the streets of the city
looking for excuses to question, intimidate and beat women for wearing
colourful clothes, jeans or travelling without a male companion. Nazanin,
a public university student, was beaten by the Taliban for sitting in
the front seat of a taxi about two weeks ago in Kabul. <They lashed me
two times across my back. It felt like my bones were broken.> Nazanin
said after she was beaten, the taxi driver was arrested and taken to the
police station. Shabnam, 23, who lives in Kabul, says she does not feel
safe walking in the streets any more. Three weeks ago Taliban fighters
stopped her 12-year old cousin, held her down and cut her hair in public
because it was not fully covered by a scarf. Shortly after, her cousin
and her family fled the country. <The Taliban have taken away my very
basic right, which is the right to choose my own clothes, and this is
very painful for me,> she says. At the beginning of the year, the
Taliban arrested several women who protested against the forced hijab
and held them in an unknown location until they were forced to release
them following international outrage.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/may/08/afghanistan-face-veil-decree-lost-my-right-choose-clothes-taliban
Al Jazeera
7 May 2022
<<Taliban orders Afghan women to cover their faces in public
The move is one of the harshest restrictions imposed on Afghanistan’s
women since the Taliban seized power last year.
Afghanistan’s supreme leader has ordered the country’s women to cover
their faces in public – one of the harshest restrictions imposed on them
since the Taliban seized power last year and an escalation of growing
restrictions on women that is drawing a backlash from the international
community and many Afghans. <They should wear a chadori (head-to-toe
burqa) as it is traditional and respectful,> said a decree issued by
Taliban chief Haibatullah Akhunzada that was released by authorities at
a function in Kabul on Saturday. A spokesman for the Ministry for the
Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice read the decree from
Akhunzada at a media conference, saying that a woman’s father or closest
male relative would be visited and eventually imprisoned or fired from
government jobs if she did not cover her face outside the home. The
spokesman added that the ideal face covering is the burqa, which became
a global symbol of the Taliban’s previous hardline rule from 1996 until
2001. Most women in Afghanistan wear a headscarf, but many in urban
areas, such as Kabul, do not cover their faces. Speaking to Al Jazeera,
Fawzia Koofi, former Afghanistan parliament deputy speaker, said the
Taliban’s decrees regarding women can only be regarded as <oppression
and repression>. <The question is, in the middle of all this suffering
for Afghan people, why is the issue of women the only one taking
priority,> asked Koofi, while referring to the deepening economic crisis
across the country. <The biggest challenge women face every day is the
lack of jobs and economic crisis,> she said. Since taking over
Afghanistan, the Taliban have reintroduced draconian restrictions on
freedoms and movements, particularly directed at women, that are
reminiscent of their last rule in the 1990s. Over the last few months,
Taliban leaders, particularly from the Ministry of Propagation of Virtue
and the Prevention of Vice, have announced many new restrictions, even
as criticism and international pressure mounts against them. In
December, the ministry, which replaced the Afghan Ministry of Women
Affairs, imposed restrictions on women from travelling further than 72km
(45 miles) without a close male relative.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/7/taliban-orders-afghan-women-to-cover-their-faces-in-public
Note by Gino d'Artali: As part of the article there's a link to 'taking
over Afghanistan' and a video link:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/7/taliban-orders-afghan-women-to-cover-their-faces-in-public
Al Jazeera
4 May 2022
By Lizzy Billing
<<A letter to … the Taliban men who drove me from my home
Months after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, a woman who was on
the group’s ‘kill list’ and forced to flee, laments all that has been
lost.
Taliban,
I am far away from you now. Around me are new faces, different faces,
faces unlike my own; faces from many countries. This room is full, hot
and filled with the odour of hundreds of strangers. The woman in front
is growing distressed. She scratches at her elbow, exposing a fair arm.
Her hair is greasy and she keeps looking back at me. Why does she keep
looking back at me? I don’t like it. The man sitting next to me has
noisy, rattling breathing. He rests his arm on the armrest of the chair
between us. It’s too close. This is <orientation>, they say, to settle
in Canada. I can hear them talking, just about … but their voices are
blurred and unclear. They are telling us about the weather and how it
will differ from Afghanistan. And the roads, shops, food, the culture –
and their beliefs, I think. I am sweating now. My heart is pounding,
punching against my chest. A high-pitched ringing floods into my head
and I jump from my chair and flee to the restroom.
Even this restroom is different.
***
The faces that are like my own, that would settle me, the faces familiar
to me – of my family and my friends – are left behind in the country
that you took from us. I am an Afghan woman. I was a journalist. I was
successful. I supported my family and I had friends supporting me. Now,
I am hundreds of miles away from everything I knew. I have been in this
new country for months and it’s beautiful here. I can see the mountains
from the window and I can feel the peace. But I am wearing the same
clothes I left my home in. Sometimes, if I push my nose deep into the
fabric, I can still smell home.
The smell taunts me and I cannot move on.
***>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/5/4/a-letter-to-the-taliban-who-drove-me-from-my-home
The Guardian
3 May 2022
Global development is supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
By Elise Blanchard in Kandahar
<<‘I am sure they will change’: Taliban swap guns for pens to learn
about human rights.
Around a conference room table, young Taliban fighters quietly listen to
an instructor teaching them how to behave with civilians.
Awkwardly armed with notebooks and pens, most of the 25 fighters turned
policemen have never been in a classroom before. They have spent most of
their young lives as combatants in rural areas, and under their ample
traditional outfits, their wrist-sized ankles betray how undernourished
they are. <What is the problem with bringing weapons inside a hospital?>
trainer Raouf asks. <People will be scared,> a young Taliban member
answers. <It will have a bad effect on sick people,> another says. This
two-day class on international humanitarian law (IHL), organised by
Geneva Call, a humanitarian organisation, takes place in Kandahar,
southern Afghanistan. <Did you ever bring your gun inside the hospital?>
Raouf asks. All the fighters laugh. <Yes,> they say, <of course!>
The rules of IHL can seem obvious: you cannot punish someone you arrest
before they go to court; boys under 18 are children and should not
fight; or <if someone is not fighting against you, you should not fight
them>. But, Raouf says, these students <have no knowledge of all these
things, they were in the mountains with only guns>. Since October, Raouf
has trained 250 men in Kandahar. <If we continue, I am sure they will
change. I have seen a lot of changes already.> After class, the fighters
say they will modify some behaviours. <I will not enter hospitals with
weapons any more,> says Barakatullah, 28. <It was also new for me to
hear that we have to respect the human dignity of prisoners.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/may/03/taliban-swap-guns-for-pens-to-learn-about-human-rights
Opinion by Gino d'Artali:
And the human dignity and sovereinity of women. But ok, the saying is
'the future is with the youth' so let's hope this will count to for the
taliban late-teen soldiers.
Al Jazeera
02 May 2022
<<Al Jazeera wins record eight Drum Online Media Awards
AJ Contrast immersive scoops Grand Prix jury prize and two first places;
AJ Digital shares three top prizes with AJE’s 101 East for This is
Myanmar’s State of Fear.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/2/al-jazeera-wins-record-eight-drum-online-media-awards
Comment by Gino d'Artali:
As the readers of Cryfreedom.net know Al Jazeera is one of my most
respected source from which I quote to almost daily. With winning these
awards I give them a standing ovation!
Al Jazeera
2 May 2022
By Ruchi Kumar and Hikmat Noori
<<Eid brings little joy for millions of Afghans facing hunger
Afghans struggle to put food on the table as the humanitarian situation
continues to remain grim.
People across Afghanistan celebrated Eid on Sunday, but for millions of
Afghans, it was yet another day of struggle to bring food to the table.
More than 90 percent of Afghans have been facing a shortage of food,
according to the United Nations. Jamal, who did not wish to share his
real name, is among those for whom Eid, which marks the end of the
Muslim holy month of Ramadan, brought litte joy. The 38-year-old has
struggled to make ends meet as the country finds itself gripped by a
severe humanitarian crisis triggered since the Taliban takeover last
August. A few pieces of bread from the nearby bakery is what Jamal could
secure for his family of 17 members. Some of it will be saved for later
to be had with whatever meal they are able to receive from charitable
friends and neighbours. <But I don’t expect we will get much even for
Eid. Who will give me money or food? The whole city is living under
poverty. I never saw anything like it even in the refugee camps where I
grew up,> he said, referring to his upbringing in refugee camps in
neighbouring Pakistan. A former junior-level government official, Jamal
spent most of the month of Ramadan looking for work or support to find
food for sehri (suhoor in Arabic), the pre-dawn meal, and for iftar, the
meal to break one’s fast at dusk. Ramadan is the holiest month in the
Islamic calendar during which Muslims fast from dawn to dusk.
‘The worst Ramadan of my life’
Jamal says his situation wasn’t always so dire. He recalls previous
Ramadans – a time of prayers, spiritual reflection, and family.
<Every Ramadan and Eid we come together with the family and community to
worship. This month and the Eid has always been about unity and
forgiveness for us, but this year it has been the opposite,> Jamal said.
<It has been the worst Ramadan of my life; not only are we starving, but
there is no unity, nor can we worship in peace,> he said, referring to
the recent attacks on mosques in Afghanistan. Taliban leader Haibatullah
Akhunzada on Sunday congratulated Afghans on <victory, freedom and
success> while attending Eid prayers in the eastern city of Kandahar.
But the humanitarian crisis and the deteriorating security situation did
not find mention in his address.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/1/afghanistan-fasting-under-taliban-rule
Opinion By Gino d'Artali
Akhunzada is a coward who does not have the guts to look the situation
in the face!!
Also I applaud Mr. Jamal but let's not forget that tens of thousands of
women are fighting i.e. struggling to survive because they (choose not
to) don't have a 'mahram'.
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