Editor of Afghan Women's Magazine Arrested

[Ripley]

By AMIR SHAH Associated Press Writer

October 04,2005 | KABUL, Afghanistan -- The editor of an Afghan women's rights magazine was jailed after a presidential adviser accused him of publishing un-Islamic material -- including an article critical of the practice of punishing adultery with 100 lashes, officials said Friday.

Minority Shiite Muslim clerics in Kabul objected to that article and another in the monthly Haqooq-i-Zan -- or Women's Rights -- that argued that giving up Islam was not a crime, Police arrested the magazine's editor, Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, on Saturday.

"I took the two magazines and spoke to Supreme Court chief, who wrote to attorney general to investigate," Baluch told The Associated Press. Baluch said the articles were directly against the principles of the Quran.

Afghanistan is a conservative Islamic country. Under a revised March 2004 media law signed by Karzai, content deemed insulting to Islam is banned. Criminal penalties were left vaguely worded, leaving open the possibility of punishment in accordance with Shariah, or Islamic law

http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8D1IAU00.html

[meganmonkey]

1. Gee, look at the headway democracy is making in Afghanistan

:eyes:

[CottonBear]

2. Women are so much better off in today's Afghanistan.

:sarcasm:
I wonder how many men are punished for adultery?

Karzai as real reformer, isn't he? Read this sentence from the article:
"Afghanistan is a conservative Islamic country. Under a revised March 2004 media law signed by Karzai, content deemed insulting to Islam is banned."

[rodeodance]

3. How sad--

[whatever4]

4. Yes, that is the reason women deserve asylum

Because religious law is used to dictate their lives, and they are not free to choose another religion. Oppression, based on gender, plain and simple.

It's not that they don't deserve political asylum. It's just that there's too many of them that deserve it, and, no one wants to afford those numbers. Pity. They fail to realize what that means. That the problem is pervasive, inescapable, and in the end, life ending. They fail to realize the lives of the women aren't the only ones lost.

Witness war. Witness global warming. Witness greed, peak oil, starvation, poverty, and endless violence against the mothers, sisters, and daughters of men and boys. It doesn't help the male of the species either; we're hardly able to take care of them very well, though they insist that IS the only reason we're on the planet. For them. But...it would cost too much to care to help. Sad. They don't get the real cost, which is, in all reality, the end of our world.

[me b zola]

5. Before the US got involved, Afghani women were full citizens

Pre-Taliban (an American creation to fight the Soviets) the women of Afghanistan were physicians, lawyers, teachers, and lived as full citizens.

So much was said in the media to make it seem as though we liberated the Afghani women from their burkas. The truth is that many now still dress in Burkas and apparently live as less than the male half of the population. Sad.

[rodeodance]

7. well, gee, maybe Laura should make a quick fly-in and "support women's

rights' again. get the photo up and all is well.

[Ripley]

11. Yep, my thoughts as well.

Remember when she was there last year and planted a tree with a woman celebrating "women's liberation" or some crap. She was asked about the situation there and replied "I think it is a very safe country to travel around in." She was in country for about 4 hours. And soon afterwards an American helicopter was shot down.

It's all about money to these people. They are trying to get the American "entrepreneurs" in there to reap their profits.

[Cocoa]

9. will "Charlie Wilson's War" ever get made?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472062/

[rooboy]

6. My first reaction was that they must have published Laura's makeover. n/t

[rkc3]

10. Speaking of wearing burkas - how about that makeover?

[rooboy]

12. It certainly isn't the face that launched a thousand ships... n/t

[rkc3]

13. More like Medusa - without the snakes.

[IndianaGreen]

8. The only time women did well in Afghanistan was under the Marxists

Carter and Reagan took care of that then, a time in which we hired people like Bin Laden to save Afghanistan from "godless" Comunism. What's fools!

Bottom line: America doesn't care about women or gay rights either here or abroad.