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  1. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by janelle View Post
    I heard in India a woman was strangled by her mother-in-law for giving birth to a third daughter. If women are going to go against women I see it as hopeless.

    I wonder what happened to the baby.

    You mean the story 2 posts up???

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  3. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by 3lilpigs View Post
    You mean the story 2 posts up???
    The story I posted was in Afghanistan, sadly she is talking about ANOTHER instance where this has happened.
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

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    Pakistan's escalating 'honor killing' problem
    By The Week's Editorial Staff | The Week – 5 hrs ago


    Almost 1,000 Pakistani women were murdered last year for allegedly dishonoring their families. A guide to the horrifying trend
    The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) released its annual report on Thursday, and tucked in among the stories of murdered journalists and liberal anti–blasphemy law activists, general intimidation, and overcrowded jails was this horrifying statistic: At least 943 women were murdered in familial "honor killings," an increase from the 791 the year before. And 943 is widely believed to be a significant undercounting, since most honor killings are covered up or not reported.

    Here's what you should know:


    What are honor killings?


    The murder of women, and occasionally men, for besmirching the perceived honor of a family or clan. Alleged dishonors include real or perceived adultery, premarital sex, refusing a pre-arranged marriage, marrying against the family's wishes, demanding a divorce, being raped, or even getting caught in inheritance or property disputes. Women are sometimes first raped or gang-raped, and the killer is almost always the father, husband, or a brother.


    What about in Pakistan?

    The HRCP says that in 2011, 595 of the murdered women were accused of "illicit relations" — largely premarital or extramarital sex — and 219 women married without family permission. On top of the killings, about 4,500 other women were victims of domestic violence last year, the group says.

    Is this just a Pakistani problem?

    No. It's an especially egregious problem in Pakistan, but honor killings occur throughout the world, even in the U.S. and Canada. The most famous cases involve Muslim families, and honor killing is typically associated with Muslim countries, but "the practice has nothing to do with Islam," says Palash R. Ghosh in the International Business Times. In fact, it predates Islam, and "is rooted in ancient tribal customs whereby the 'honor' of a family or a whole village is represented by the morality, chastity, and proper behavior of its women."

    What is Pakistan doing about it?

    In theory, the perpetrators of honor killings are supposed to be prosecuted for murder, but in practice, police usually shrug the killings off as a family matter, or take at face value family assertions that the woman committed suicide or died in accidents. Human rights groups applaud Pakistan's legislature for passing laws that strengthen rules against abusing women, but better enforcement and stricter punishment is still needed. Really, activist Sana Saleem tells Britain's The Telegraph, "without the police and the courts reforming, changing their attitude to women, then nothing can change."

    http://news.yahoo.com/pakistans-esca...154500684.html

    [i]comments

    Islam ,the religion were killing is concidered an honour , "Religion of Peace", indeed.

    ...

    What is Pakistan doing about it?
    Not a dmmed thing....
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

  5. #26
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    Jail may await Afghan women fleeing abuse, rape
    By Jack Kimball | Reuters – 7 hrs ago

    KABUL (Reuters) - For Afghan women, the act of fleeing domestic abuse, forced prostitution or even being stabbed repeatedly with a screwdriver by an abusive husband, may land them in jail while their abusers walk free, Human Rights Watch said.

    Running away is considered a "moral crime" for women in Afghanistan while some rape victims are also imprisoned, because sex outside marriage - even when the woman is forced - is considered adultery, another "moral crime". "From the first time I came to this world my destiny was destroyed," 17-year-old Amina, who has spent months in jail after being forced into prostitution, told researchers from Human Rights Watch in a report published on Wednesday.

    Despite progress in women's rights and freedom since the fall of the Taliban a decade ago, women throughout the country are at risk of abduction, rape, forced marriage and being traded as commodities.

    It can be hard for women to escape violence at home because of huge social pressure and legal risks to stay in marriages. "The treatment of women and girls accused of 'moral crimes' is a black eye on the face of the post-Taliban Afghan government and its international backers, all of whom promised that respect for women's rights would distinguish the new government from the Taliban," the New York-based group said.

    "This situation has been further undermined by President (Hamid) Karzai's frequently changing position on women's rights. Unwilling or unable to take a consistent line against conservative forces within the country, he has often made compromises that have negatively impacted women's rights."

    The influential rights organization said that there were about 400 women and girls being held in Afghanistan for "moral crimes", and they rarely found support from authorities in a "dysfunctional criminal justice system". The plight of a woman called Nilofar illustrates the problem. She was stabbed repeatedly with a screwdriver in the head, chest, and arms by her husband who accused her of adultery for inviting a man into the house, the rights group said. But afterwards, she was arrested, he was not. "The way he beat her wasn't bad enough to keep him in jail. She wasn't near death, so he didn't need to be in prison," the prosecutor of the case told Human Rights Watch.

    "HE WILL KILL ME"

    The dire treatment of women was the main reason Western countries gave for refusing to recognize the Taliban government as legitimate when it was in power. As Afghan and Western leaders seek a negotiated end to more than 10 years of war, the future for women is uncertain.

    The United States and NATO - who are fighting an unpopular war as they prepare to pull out most combat troops by the end of 2014 - have stressed that any settlement must ensure the constitution, which says the two sexes are equal, is upheld. A law, passed in August 2009, supports equality for women, including criminalizing child and forced marriage, selling and buying women for marriage or for settling disputes, as well as forced self-immolation, among other acts.

    But women, especially in rural areas, lack shelters to flee abuse while only one percent of police are female, according to the report based on interviews from October to November with 58 women and girls as well as prosecutors, judges, government officials and civil society.

    The ordeal for women does not stop with jail though. Once leaving prison, women and girls face strong social stigma in the conservative country and may be killed in so-called "honor killings".

    "I just want a divorce. I can't go back to my father because he will kill me. All my family has left me behind," 20-year-old Aisha, who was sentenced to three years for fleeing an abusive husband she was forced to marry, told researchers.

    http://news.yahoo.com/jail-may-await...053842609.html
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

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    Prominent Pakistani acid attack victim commits suicide after enduring dozens of surgeries
    By Sebastian Abbot, The Associated Press | Associated Press – 6 hrs ago

    ISLAMABAD - Pakistani acid attack victim Fakhra Younus had endured more than three dozen surgeries over more than a decade to repair her severely damaged face and body when she finally decided life was no longer worth living.

    The 33-year-old former dancing girl — who was allegedly attacked by her then-husband, an ex-parliamentarian and son of a political powerhouse — jumped from the sixth floor of a building in Rome, where she had been living and receiving treatment.

    Her March 17 suicide and the return of her body to Pakistan on Sunday reignited furor over the case, which received significant international attention at the time of the attack. Her death came less than a month after a Pakistani filmmaker won the country's first Oscar for a documentary about acid attack victims.

    Younus' story not only drives home the woeful plight of many women in conservative Muslim Pakistan, it is also a reminder of how the country's rich and powerful operate with impunity. Younus' ex-husband, Bilal Khar, was eventually acquitted, but many believe he used his connections to escape the law's grip — a common occurrence in Pakistan.

    More than 8,500 acid attacks, forced marriages and other forms of violence against women were reported in Pakistan in 2011, according to The Aurat Foundation, a women's rights organization. Because the group relied mostly on media reports, the figure is likely an undercount. "The saddest part is that she realized that the system in Pakistan was never going to provide her with relief or remedy," Nayyar Shabana Kiyani, an activist at The Aurat Foundation, said of Younus. "She was totally disappointed that there was no justice available to her."

    Younus was a teenage dancing girl working in the red light district of the southern city of Karachi when she met her future husband, the son of Ghulam Mustafa Khar, a former governor of Pakistan's largest province, Punjab. The unusual pairing was the younger Khar's third marriage. He was in his mid-30s at the time.

    The couple was married for three years, but Younus eventually left him because he allegedly physically and verbally abused her. She claimed that he came to her mother's house while she was sleeping in May 2000 and poured acid all over her in the presence of her 5-year-old son from a different man.

    Tehmina Durrani, Ghulam Mustafa Khar's ex-wife and his son's stepmother, became an advocate for Younus after the attack, drawing international attention to the case. She said that Younus' injuries were the worst she had ever seen on an acid attack victim. "So many times we thought she would die in the night because her nose was melted and she couldn't breathe," said Durrani, who wrote a book about her own allegedly abusive relationship with the elder Khar. "We used to put a straw in the little bit of her mouth that was left because the rest was all melted together."

    She said Younus, whose life had always been hard, became a liability to her family, for whom she was once a source of income. "Her life was a parched stretch of hard rock on which nothing bloomed," Durrani wrote in a column in The News after Younus' suicide.

    Younus' ex-husband grew up in starkly different circumstances, amid the wealth and power of the country's feudal elite, and counts Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar as a cousin. Bilal Khar once again denied carrying out the acid attack in a TV interview following her suicide, suggesting a different man with the same name committed the crime. He claimed Younus killed herself because she didn't have enough money, not because of her horrific injuries, and criticized the media for hounding him about the issue. "You people should be a little considerate," said Khar. "I have three daughters and when they go to school people tease them."

    Younus was energized when the Pakistani government enacted a new set of laws last year that explicitly criminalized acid attacks and mandated that convicted attackers would serve a minimum sentence of 14 years, said Durrani. She hoped to return someday to get justice once her health stabilized. "She said, 'When I come back, I will reopen the case, and I'll fight myself,' and she was a fighter," Durrani said.

    Durrani had to battle with both Younus' ex-husband and the government to send her to Italy, where the Italian government paid for her treatment and provided her money to live on and send her child to school. Pakistani officials argued that sending Younus to Italy would give the country a bad name, Durrani said.

    Younus was happy when Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won an Oscar for her documentary about acid attack victims in February, but was worried about being forgotten since she wasn't profiled in the film, said Durrani.

    Durrani said Younus' case should be a reminder that the Pakistani government needs to do much more to prevent acid attacks and other forms of violence against women, and also help the victims. "I think this whole country should be extremely embarrassed that a foreign country took responsibility for a Pakistani citizen for 13 years because we could give her nothing, not justice, not security," said Durrani.

    http://news.yahoo.com/prominent-paki...070024854.html
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

  7. #28
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    The real “war on women,” presented by the Religion of Misogyny and Necrophilia

    Posted by: Phineas on April 26, 2012 at 2:36 pm

    The Arab Spring is turning into a horror movie: http://english.alarabiya.net/article...25/210198.html

    Egypt’s National Council for Women (NCW) has appealed to the Islamist-dominated parliament not to approve two controversial laws on the minimum age of marriage and allowing a husband to have sex with his dead wife within six hours of her death according to a report in an Egyptian newspaper.

    The appeal came in a message sent by Dr. Mervat al-Talawi, head of the NCW, to the Egyptian People’s Assembly Speaker, Dr. Saad al-Katatni, addressing the woes of Egyptian women, especially after the popular uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

    She was referring to two laws: one that would legalize the marriage of girls starting from the age of 14 and the other that permits a husband to have sex with his dead wife within the six hours following her death.
    (…)
    The controversy about a husband having sex with his dead wife came about after a Moroccan cleric spoke about the issue in May 2011. Zamzami Abdul Bari said that marriage remains valid even after death adding that a woman also too had the same right to engage in sex with her dead husband.
    Well, at least there’s gender equality in that regard.

    via The Daily Mail, which also reports that large segments of the Egyptian population are incensed: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...TER-death.html

    TV anchor Jaber al-Qarmouty slammed the notion of letting a husband have sex with his wife after her death under the so-called ‘Farewell Intercourse’ draft law.

    He said: ‘This is very serious. Could the panel that will draft the Egyptian constitution possibly discuss such issues? Did Abdul Samea see by his own eyes the text of the message sent by Talawi to Katatni? ‘This is unbelievable. It is a catastrophe to give the husband such a right! Has the Islamic trend reached that far? Is there really a draft law in this regard? Are there people thinking in this manner?’
    But it’s the Islamic supremacists who dominate the new Egyptian parliament , and they’re the ones writing the laws. The Muslim Brotherhood and other, even more rigorous, Salafist parties want to reestablish the “pure” Islam of the early years, the time of Muhammad and his companions. http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...lam-salafi.htm

    “But, surely,” you ask, “Islamic texts don’t condone having sex with corpses?”

    Think again.

    Bear in mind that the Qur’an says Muhammad’s life is an eternal example for all who want to be good Muslims: http://www.cmje.org/religious-texts/...es/033-qmt.php

    Ye have indeed in the Messenger of Allah a beautiful pattern (of conduct) for any one whose hope is in Allah and the Final Day, and who engages much in the Praise of Allah. — Qur’an 33:21
    And while lying with the dead isn’t in the Qur’an, it is presented as something Muhammad did in canonical Islamic texts: http://www.raymondibrahim.com/9865/t...of-the-prophet

    It was late in the night, yet Fr Botros was not done cataloging his findings regarding the prophet’s “sexual” habits (these shows are an hour and a half long). So, when he moved on to a hadith depicting Muhammad lying next to a dead woman in her grave, as well as pointing to hadith categories called “intercourse with a dead woman,” I happily turned off the satellite and called it a night—till this moment, as I am (somewhat reluctantly) revisiting my notes to prepare this report. (from “Part Two”)
    The hadiths are collections of the words and deeds of Muhammad and are considered essential to the proper interpretation of the Qur’an. I urge you to read the whole article to see a side of the Islamic prophet not usually mentioned before “infidels.” Just be prepared to say “ew” a lot.

    Thus the proposed Egyptian “farewell intercourse” law is right in line with that “beautiful pattern of conduct.”

    Meanwhile, as opposed to the fake, risible “war on women” meme the Democrats have been pushing to talk about anything but their record, there is a very real war on women being pushed in lands where Islam dominates, often by other women: http://www.raymondibrahim.com/2012/0...eks-to-abolish

    According to the Egyptian website Youm 7, Azza al-Jarf, a female Member of Parliament representing the Muslim Brotherhood’s “Freedom and Justice Party,” is trying to abolish several laws currently enjoyed by Egyptian women—including preventing them from divorcing or even separating from their husbands, because “the man has the authority and stewardship” (see Koran 4:34); mandating that fathers must circumcise their daughters; and trying to get the Egyptian educational system to ban the teaching of the English language—on the grounds that it is an “infidel” tongue—while separating boys and girls in classrooms and forcing girls to wear the hijab.
    In other words, the party of pure Islam is trying to impose an “individual mandate” to mutilate one’s daughter and leave her in pain for the rest of her life. http://www.endfgm.eu/en/female-genit...ffects-of-fgm/

    Finally, Walter Russell Mead cites a new article in Foreign Policy on the detailing the growing repression and brutality toward women under the “Arab Spring:”
    http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...e_us?page=full

    Name me an Arab country, and I’ll recite a litany of abuses fueled by a toxic mix of culture and religion that few seem willing or able to disentangle lest they blaspheme or offend. When more than 90 percent of ever-married women in Egypt—including my mother and all but one of her six sisters—have had their genitals cut in the name of modesty, then surely we must all blaspheme. When Egyptian women are subjected to humiliating “virginity tests” merely for speaking out, it’s no time for silence. When an article in the Egyptian criminal code says that if a woman has been beaten by her husband “with good intentions” no punitive damages can be obtained, then to hell with political correctness. And what, pray tell, are “good intentions”? They are legally deemed to include any beating that is “not severe” or “directed at the face.” What all this means is that when it comes to the status of women in the Middle East, it’s not better than you think. It’s much, much worse. Even after these “revolutions,” all is more or less considered well with the world as long as women are covered up, anchored to the home, denied the simple mobility of getting into their own cars, forced to get permission from men to travel, and unable to marry without a male guardian’s blessing—or divorce either.
    The author herself has horrifying personal experience of this.

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: how any woman, unless naively ignorant or harboring a deep-seated need to be a slave, could ever willingly become Muslim is beyond me.

    UPDATE: Allahpundit is skeptical. And not unreasonably so. http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/2...e-after-death/




    **Posted by Phineas http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/20...d-necrophilia/
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

  8. #29

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    Why are these woman going after other woman because they had a girl. Choke your son B****h. The man determins the sex of a child.

    Me
    Last edited by hblueeyes; 04-27-2012 at 02:12 PM. Reason: correction

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    Afghan child bride's in-laws sentenced for torture
    By RAHIM FAIEZ | Associated Press – 5 hrs ago



    KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The in-laws of a child bride who became the bruised and bloodied face of women's rights in Afghanistan have been sentenced to 10 years in prison for torture, abuse and human rights violations, a judge said Saturday. The plight of 15-year-old Sahar Gul captivated the nation and set off a storm of international condemnation when it came to light in late December. Officials said her husband's family kept her in a basement for six months after her arranged marriage, ripping out her fingernails, breaking her fingers and torturing her with hot irons in an attempt to force her into prostitution.

    She was rescued by police in northeastern Baghlan province after an uncle alerted authorities.

    Gul's husband's father, mother and sister were each sentenced to 10 years in prison by a court in Kabul on Tuesday, presiding judge Sibghatullah Razi said.

    Also found guilty were Gul's husband, a member of the Afghan army, and her brother-in-law, both of whom have been on the run since her case became public, Razi said. He said the men will be sentenced when they are captured.

    Gul was present for the decision, telling the court that she wanted her in-laws "severely punished" for what they had put her through, Razi said. She has filed an appeal for a longer sentence with the help of the Women for Afghan Women, a group that works for women's rights in the country and has been caring for the teenager since her rescue. "Of course we are not happy with the court's decision," said Huma Safi, program manager for the group.

    Gul's case has prompted calls for more efforts to strengthen women's rights and end underage marriage. The legal marriage age in Afghanistan is 16, but the United Nations agency UN Women estimates that half of all girls are forced to marry under age 15. There has been progress in women's rights since the 2001 U.S.-led campaign that toppled the Taliban regime, which banned girls' schools and prevented women from leaving the house unless accompanied by a male relative.

    But ending abuse remains a huge challenge in Afghanistan's patriarchal society, where traditional practices include child marriage, giving girls away to settle debts or pay for their relatives' crimes and so-called honor killings in which women seen as disgracing their families are murdered by their relatives.

    Gul, who had been married for seven months when she was found in late December, is still seeing doctors for some problems with her hands and fingers, but is doing better both physically and emotionally, Safi said. She said the girl is now very interested in studying, very different from when she first arrived.

    She also has made great progress in her efforts to become comfortable around other people again, Safi said. "She was very brave. When she was brought to us after her rescue, she was unable to speak. But this week she was able to get up and speak in front of an entire courtroom asking for her rights," Safi said. "These are all positive signs and of course we are very proud of her."

    http://news.yahoo.com/afghan-child-b...123858925.html
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

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    Insight: Afghan women fade from White House focus as exit nears
    By Laura MacInnis and Amie Ferris-Rotman | Reuters – 8 hrs ago.

    WASHINGTON/KABUL (Reuters) - Shortly after sending U.S. troops to Afghanistan in October 2001, President George W. Bush focused so intently on freeing Afghan women from the shackles of Taliban rule that empowering them became central to the United States' mission there. More than a decade later, as his successor Barack Obama charts a way out of the unpopular war, Afghan girls are back in school, infant and maternal survival rates are up and a quarter of the parliament's seats are reserved for women who at least on paper have the same voting, mobility and other rights as men.

    But Obama rarely speaks about that progress, delegating discussion of women's rights to his secretary of state and other top diplomats so he can focus on narrower goals for Afghanistan: uprooting the militants there and getting out.

    Obama's lack of overt attention to Afghan women has led many to fear their hard-fought gains will slip away as the United States hands off security responsibility to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, with ever-present Taliban leaders still holding sway in much of the countryside. Women's issues are not on the formal agenda at the NATO summit the United States will be hosting in Chicago later this month. Afghanistan is poised to send an all-male delegation.

    Suzanne Nossel, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said it was "really worrying" that Obama only made a passing reference to women on his trip to Afghanistan last week, when he affirmed a general need "to protect the human rights of all Afghans - men and women, boys and girls."

    Obama's choice of words also was noticed in Afghanistan, which remains a conservative and male-dominated Islamic country. Gulalai Safi, a female member of parliament from northern Balkh province, said it was "somewhat of a shame" that he did not use the visit to underline women's rights. Amnesty is calling on Obama to spell out a plan to preserve the gains for women since the fall of the Taliban, which from 1996 to 2001 barred Afghan girls from schools and kept women from working and from leaving their homes unless they were accompanied by a male relative or spouse and were covered in a head-to-toe burqa.

    For more than a year, the White House has been pursuing, with little success, reconciliation talks involving the Islamist group that could give it a share of power in Kabul. "When you are negotiating with the Taliban, ensuring the rights of women is not a simple matter," Nossel said. "In that sense you can understand why they are not talking about it but that is why it is doubly worrying."

    WOMEN AS BAROMETER

    Bush did not mention Afghan women when he launched the war a month after the September 11, 2001, attacks that were orchestrated by al Qaeda militants based in Afghanistan. But he soon broadened his rhetoric, saying that empowering women was essential to strengthen Afghan society and prevent al Qaeda from keeping a foothold there.

    His wife, Laura Bush, also made Afghan women one of her signature issues. In November 2001 she delivered the weekly presidential radio address "to kick off a worldwide effort to focus on the brutality against women and children by the al Qaeda terrorist network and the regime it supports in Afghanistan, the Taliban." The former schoolteacher visited Afghanistan three times to support educational projects and efforts to tackle infant and child mortality rates, then the highest in the world next to Sierra Leone, and to inform women about their legal rights. "Her effort really helped to sell to the American people why we needed to do what we were doing," said Anita McBride, former chief of staff to Laura Bush.

    Today's White House has a more limited definition of that purpose, one that eschews his predecessor's "nation-building."

    In February, White House spokesman Jay Carney stated that U.S. troops were in Afghanistan to root out al Qaeda militants and their training camps, accusing the previous administration of adopting a mission was "muddled and unclear."

    The Obama administration says women's rights remain an important goal, even if not the focus of its public rhetoric. "That refocusing of our efforts is reflected in our public messaging. When we talk about the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, you will hear us speak to that core goal," said Caitlin Hayden, a National Security Council spokeswoman. But she said there was "absolutely no lessening of our attention or support to Afghan women from this administration."

    Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, an Afghanistan expert with the Council on Foreign Relations, said the American public was so tired of the war that today's White House was reluctant to dwell on what is at stake with the U.S. departure. "Now the question is how to get out, not to explain why we got in," Lemmon said. But she stressed the risks of seeing women "as a pet project instead of a barometer for the society's health."

    "How the war ends really does matter. The question is, will a Somalia be left behind in Afghanistan? And if it is, women will be the first to suffer," she said.

    DISCOURAGING HEADLINES

    Obama often jokes that he is surrounded by women, sharing the White House with his wife, two daughters and mother-in-law and working closely with female advisers and cabinet members including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He created the first White House Council on Women and Girls shortly after taking office to make sure the U.S. government "considers the needs of women and girls in every decision we make." In December he signed an executive order and action plan telling U.S. diplomats to work to empower women as "equal partners" in conflict prevention and peace-making.

    But neither he nor first lady Michelle Obama has used their tremendous attention-generating power to stress the needs of women outside the United States, including in Afghanistan. That work has mainly been left to Clinton, herself a former first lady, who has visited Afghanistan three times as the United States' top diplomat. Melanne Verveer, U.S. ambassador-at-large for global women's issues, has been to Afghanistan twice.

    In an interview, Verveer acknowledged the American public had lost track of the advances for Afghan women amid "discouraging" headlines about acid attacks on girls in school and violence against women that the United Nations has said remains at "near-pandemic levels." "But it is important to see just so much has been achieved, that there should not be a reversal in the investments and the progress that has been made, because that would be to the detriment of Afghanistan's future," she said.

    Asked why Obama has not spoken more directly about the need to protect Afghan women, Verveer said the president had made clear he wants U.S. diplomats and military personnel to focus on women's issues on the ground as they prepare for the transition.
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

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    ‘NO SUPPORT'

    In the talks with the Taliban, which are currently suspended, the White House has said it would only accept a reconciliation deal that requires respect for the Afghan constitution, which codifies equal rights for men and women.

    But in Afghanistan, many women fear that Karzai could trade away their freedoms as he seeks to curry support in conservative parts of the country, including in rural areas where female illiteracy remains above 90 percent and child marriages are still widespread despite being illegal.

    In March, Karzai backed recommendations from powerful clerics to segregate the sexes in the workplace and allow husbands to beat their wives under certain circumstances. Last year he sacked the deputy governor of southern Helmand province after two women performed without headscarves at a high-profile concert. "This is a green light paving the way for extreme figures, including the Taliban, to come forward," said Fawzia Koofi, a female member of parliament who has said she plans to run in the country's 2014 presidential elections.

    Senior Afghan peace negotiators have said the Taliban is now willing to soften its hardline ideology to regain a share of power. But a spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, said this week that "it is too early to discuss" whether the group now supported girls' education.

    Another Afghan lawmaker, Shukria Barakzai, said the shift in attention from the White House had decreased the pressure on Afghan leaders to take the status of women seriously. "We are now getting the sense that in order to achieve women's rights, we have to act alone ... We feel like we have no support," said Barakzai, who met Laura Bush during one of her trips to Afghanistan.

    On a trip to Washington, Afghanistan's health minister Suraya Dalil said women in the country were ready to stay politically active to prevent backsliding in health and other areas with the political changeover. "Being a woman in Afghanistan today is different from being a woman in Afghanistan 11 years ago," the Kabul-trained surgeon and mother of three girls said in an interview. "We want to be engaged in the peace process, in the transition, and decisions about the future of Afghanistan. In all of this we want to be engaged and we want our voice to be heard."

    There are also grassroots women's movements emerging in Afghanistan and signs of change in the capital's streets. Kabul is now full of beauty parlors for women, unheard of during Taliban times, and girls in their white hijab and black uniforms are seen going merrily to and from school every day.

    But there has been a dramatic spike in reports of violence against women, and very few perpetrators are getting punished for crimes including beatings, torture and brutal killings. Over the past year, the volunteer group Young Women For Change glued more than 700 posters around Kabul showing a woman's veiled face that read: "don't grab my hair/don't throw stones in my face/I can stand on my own two feet/I can build this country with you together."

    Almost all the posters were torn down within days.

    http://news.yahoo.com/insight-afghan...184126698.html

    comments

    The taliban will come back when we leave and continue the abuse of the women. I know one in Hollywood that won't think too well of Obama when he leaves them and that's jay Leno's wife!She has spoken out against the abuse of women at the hands of the Taliban for years!

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    What's this? A War on Women???

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    We don't care about the Afghan's women anymore. The government now worries if the gays will vote for them or not

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    Watch all the liberals as their teeny brains twist up trying somehow to make Bush's stance on liberating women into something "bad". No big surprise that Obama toned that down in order to keep his muslim buddies in Afghanistan happy, is it?

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    Obama would focus on Afghan women more if they complain about having no access to birth control.

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    Wow and somehow you liberals along with your anointed one fail to mention that this was a direct result of George Bush. Somehow women were freed from tyranny yet nothing said about what a good job our men and women did under Bush' leadership. Now please tell me who is at war with women? Oh right the liberals of course! Truth hurts doesn't it folks.

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    These women never mattered to US women's groups and that is all Obama cares about... Votes

    Don't blame him, blame those who gave him this out

    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

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    Jolie Rouge's Avatar
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    .
    Afghan police hunt woman's executioner
    By Sardar Ahmad | AFP – 2 hrs 15 mins ago.

    A manhunt was under way Monday for Taliban militants who publicly executed a woman accused of adultery, Afghan authorities said, as outrage mounted after a video of the cold-blooded killing surfaced.

    President Hamid Karzai called the killing "disgusting and unforgivable" and ordered security forces to spare no effort in arresting and punishing those responsible. The commander of NATO's 130,000 troops in Afghanistan, General John Allen, offered to help local security forces track and capture the men involved in what he called "an atrocity of unspeakable cruelty".

    The brutal shooting of the lone woman before a cheering mob of men is shown in graphic detail in a video of the event in a village in Parwan province some 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of the capital Kabul. "We have sent a police force to the area," Parwan provincial governor Basir Salangi told AFP, adding that the government had no permanent presence in the valley. "They are searching for the Taliban who are responsible but the Taliban, including the killer, have fled to the mountains."

    Roshna Khalid, Salangi's spokeswoman, separately told AFP the 22-year-old woman, named as Najiba, was married to a member of the hardline Islamist Taliban and was accused of adultery with a Taliban commander. "Within one hour they decided that she was guilty and sentenced her to death. They shot her in front of villagers in her village, Qol," she said.

    Public executions of alleged adulterers were common when the Taliban regime was in power from 1996 until 2001, when they were ousted by a US-led invasion for harbouring Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban have since waged an insurgency against the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

    Karzai said Afghanistan's suffering people were not expecting a repeat of such incidents after the fall of the Taliban regime. "Murdering a woman who did not even have a voice for defending herself is a sign of cowardness and such a crime is unforgivable in Islam and the country's laws," he said.

    The video also drew international condemnation, with British Foreign Secretary William Hague saying he was "shocked and disgusted" by the execution. "Such deplorable actions underline the vital need for better protection of the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan," he said.

    US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, before the video surfaced, made a powerful plea Sunday for the rights of women in Afghanistan, amid fears that recent gains for women are under threat as NATO troops prepare to leave in 2014. Clinton, who was addressing a world conference in Tokyo on Afghanistan's future, said: "The United States believes strongly that no nation can achieve peace, stability and economic growth if half the population is not empowered."

    The video opens with the woman, wrapped in a grey shawl, sitting at the edge of a ditch in a village surrounded by dozens of men, some perched on rooftops for a better view. As she sits with her back to the crowd a bearded man is seen reading verses from the Koran condemning adultery, before saying: "We cannot forgive her, God tells us to finish her."

    The video then shows a man in white being handed an AK-47 rifle. Some local reports said the shooter was the woman's husband but Khalid, the governor's spokeswoman, told AFP that he was a relative of the victim's husband. The executioner approaches to within a couple of metres (yards) of the woman, says "Allahu akhbar" (God is great), and fires a total of 13 shots as the crowd cheers wildly, shouting "Long live Islam", "Long live mujahideen (holy warriors)".

    http://news.yahoo.com/clinton-plea-r...134043486.html

    comments

    150 "men" stood watching, yet there are no witnesses. Sounds about right.

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    Long live holy warriors? Warriors of what? Warriors fight with, warriors stand their ground and face danger. Killing an unarmed person, let alone women and children have never been a warriors' way. And running away from the police is sure as HHHELLLL not a warrior's way. So long live Cowards, because that's all you can be.

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    if they really wanted to find the killers.....arrest all the villagers who sat and watched... for depraved indifference.....they could have helped but didnt that makes them complicit

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    I find it hard to believe that this woman willinginly cheated on her husband. If he is a taliban militant, it's pretty likely that she is a devout muslim, and it's certain that she knows the penalty for cheating under Taliban law. What I find much more believable is that she was raped or given to the other taliban guy, and for some reason (they don't need a good reason in that barbaric group) they just decided to kill her. Maybe the one she was raped by/given to felt it made him unclean once he got his rocks off. It's common for a woman raped in an Islamic country to be killed for it so that the man may be cleansed of her 'sin', which was just to exist. Her very existance is enough to drive a man into a lustful frenzy, which is of course her fault.

    I don't think voicing a plea is going to work, Karzai has made it clear that it's not at the top of his priorities, what he probably is most concerned about is how much money he can fleece out of the US and her allies. I know the US has it's problems, but I am really glad I was born here and not there, or someplace like Saudi Arabia or Iran. The ones I really feel for are our troops, who have given up life and limb to go to war in Afganistan, and now it's going backwards again.

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    The problem with the "strict application of punishment of the Koren" is that only the woman gets murdered. I notice the Taliban Commander that allegedly did the deed with her didn't get killed. The men can on with married women and it is no problem. Only the women have sinned.
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

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