Women's rights in Afghanistan, a paradox?

Six years after the fall of the Taleban, Afghan women now have a say and a position under the country's constitution, but they are still suffering. I recently read an article on BBC online about six female Members of Parliament in Afghanistan who have been the targets of serious threats.

Thankfully, Afghan women are participating actively in politics. Of the 361 members of parliament today, 91 are women. These politicians have begun speaking up about issues such as forced marriages, honour killings, abortions and rape.
But with these new threats, I wonder if Afghan women will be strong enough to continue exercising their rights.

BBC journalist Soutik Biswas introduces Shukria Barakzai, an MP who has been receiving a letters for three months warning her that she may be targeted by a suicide bomber in the next six months.

The cryptic government letter contains an intelligence warning that Ms Barakzai's life is under threat and she should be careful.

BBC quotes Barakzai saying "That is all that the government does - send a letter by mail once every month saying my life is under threat. There isn't talk of even providing security.”

The article suggests that Barakzai may be targeted in response to the speeches she has delivered against Afghanistan’s warlords in the past, as well as her criticism of Pakistan and support of women’s rights.

According to the BBC report, the state cannot protect women or ensure that they can go about their work safely.

Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission documented over 1,500 cases of atrocities against women last year. Reports range from victims of domestic violence to forced marriage. The commission documented 98 women who had set themselves on fire and over 100 more who tried to commit suicide by consuming poison.

What can be done? Perhaps just bringing awareness to the dangers progressive women face in Afghanistan will create political pressure so that policies in Afghanistan change to better protect these women.

You can read the entire BBC article “Women under siege in Afghanistan” here.

You can also listen to Afghan Member of Parliament Malalai Joya talk about women's rights in the You Tube video below:

Iraq today...

On BBC online today a developing news story caught my eye. Bilal Hussein, a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer from the Associated Press, was detained by U.S. troops under suspicion of helping Iraqi insurgents. He was originally arrested in April 2006 after sheltering strangers in his Falluja home following a nearby explosion.

The Pentagon claims that new evidence has come to life supporting the assumption that Hussein is a “terrorist media operative” who was infiltrated into AP. However, it is Iraqi judges who will decide Hussein’s fate.

Through their own investigation, lawyers with the Associated Press claim they have found no evidence suggesting that Hussein was anything other than an Iraqi journalist. What’s more, they claim they have been denied access to Hussein and the evidence against him, making it impossible to build a defense.

In the BBC article, AP's president and chief executive officer Tom Curley suggests that the US military just wants to keep Hussein in jail as long as possible. When he requests to see what the pentagon calls "convincing and irrefutable evidence that Bilal Hussein is a threat to security and stability as a link to insurgent activity," he claims to receive materials that are not convincing at all.

Though I am not very well informed on human rights in Iraq, this BBC article makes it sound like justice is not being served, and Hussein may be at a severe disadvantage in his trial.

Read more about the story here and tell me what you think.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press also covered a story today about a deadly U. S. helicopter crash Southeast of Baghdad today. Initial reports have not revealed the cause of the crash, but claim that it was not the result of hostile fire.
The story explained that while two people were killed as a result of the crash, their nationalities have not been specified.

This detail got me thinking, I understand why Americans relate better to the loss of their own than the loss of an Iraqi, but why is it that the media has disregarded most Iraqi causalities. Why don’t we car about the numbers of Iraqi civilians who have been killed since the start of the war? We focus so much on the death of U.S. soldiers but generally disregard the other deaths that have been caused by this war.
What do you think?

And because I know you’re wondering, according to the department of defense 3872 U.S. soldiers have been killed since March 2003 in Iraq.

And even though you’re probably not wondering, in February 2007 BBC estimated that 55,664 to 61,369 Iraqi civilians had been killed in the war to date.

For a full list of crashes in Iraq since the War started go here.