Obama administration denies visa to Afghan women's rights hero and writer!

Better Believe It

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Sun Mar-20-11 05:06 PM
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Obama administration denies visa to Afghan women's rights hero and writer!

Edited on Sun Mar-20-11 05:09 PM by Better Believe It

Afghan women�s rights hero is latest victim of ideological exclusion
By Carol Rose
March 20. 2011

Malalai Joya is a 32-year-old Afghan woman named by TIME magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Foreign Policy Magazine listed her on its annual list of Top 100 Global Thinkers, and last week The Guardian listed her among the "Top 100 women: activists and campaigners" in the world.

Ms. Joya was scheduled to come to Boston and other U.S. cities this week � including scheduled stops at Harvard, U. Mass. Amherst, and Smith College -- as part of speaking tour to promote her book, A Woman Among Warlords, when the State Department refused to grant her an entry visa.

Ms. Joya was told that her visa was denied because she is "unemployed" and lives "underground" -- the result of various death threats lodged against her by the Afghan warlords she has publicly criticized.

A more plausible reason for her exclusion is that Ms. Joya, who has been called the �bravest woman in Afghanistan� for her outspoken criticism of both the Taliban and the Karzai government, is likely to say something critical of the Obama Administration�s war in her country.

Malalai Joya

Read the full article at:

http://boston.com/community/blogs/on_liberty/2011/03/how_an_afghan_womens_rights_he.html

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NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 17, 2011
9:06 AM
CONTACT: Rights Activists

Sonali Kolhatkar (626-676-7884), Prachi Patankar (917-415-0659), or Natalie Reyes (562) 319-3046)

US Government Denies Entry Visa to Afghan Women�s Rights Activist and Author Malalai Joya

NATIONWIDE - March 17 - The United States has denied a travel visa to Malalai Joya, an acclaimed women�s rights activist and former member of Afghanistan�s parliament. Ms. Joya, who was named one of TIME magazine�s 100 most influential people in the world in 2010, was set to begin a three-week US tour to promote an updated edition of her memoir, A Woman Among Warlords, published by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

Joya�s publisher at Scribner, Alexis Gargagliano, said, �We had the privilege to publish Ms. Joya, and her earlier 2009 book tour met with wide acclaim. The right of authors to travel and promote their work is central to freedom of expression and the full exchange of ideas.� Joya�s memoir has been translated into over a dozen languages, and she has toured widely including Australia, the UK, Canada, Norway, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, and the Netherlands in support of the book over the past two years.

Colleagues of Ms. Joya�s report that when she presented herself as scheduled at the U.S. embassy, she was told she was being denied because she was �unemployed� and �lives underground.� Then 27, Joya was the youngest woman elected to Afghanistan�s parliament in 2005. Because of her harsh criticism of warlords and fundamentalists in Afghanistan, she has been the target of at least five assassination attempts. �The reason Joya lives underground is because she faces the constant threat of death for having had the courage to speak up for women�s rights � it�s obscene that the U.S. government would deny her entry,� said Sonali Kolhatkar of the Afghan Women�s Mission, a U.S. based organization that has hosted Joya for speaking tours in the past and is a sponsor of this year�s national tour.

Joya has also become an internationally known critic of the US-NATO war in Afghanistan. Organizers argue that the denial of Joya�s visa appears to be a case of what the American Civil Liberties Union describes as �Ideological Exclusion,� which they say violates Americans� First Amendment right to hear constitutionally protected speech by denying foreign scholars, artists, politicians and others entry to the United States.

Events featuring Malalai Joya are planned, from March 20 until April 10, in New York, New Jersey, Washington DC, Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington and California. Organizers of her speaking tour are encouraging people to contact the Department of State to ask them to fulfill the promise from the Obama Administration of �promoting the global marketplace of ideas� and grant Joya�s visa immediately.

Malalai Joya is available for a limited number of interviews. Contact Sonali Kolhatkar (626-676-7884), Prachi Patankar (917-415-0659), or Natalie Reyes (562) 319-3046).

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http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/03/17-1?quicktabs_1=1

I'll guess at one possible response. President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have never heard of her or read her book and they are totally unaware of this exclusion.

Well, perhaps a flood of e-mails and protest letters to the White House and Clinton are in order! BBI