[no subject]

["Manuel S. Malmierca" <msm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 10:59:52 +0100
>To: sarabande@brandeis.edu
>From: msm@gugu.usal.es
>Cc: merchan, lopezde, saldana, plaza, vbajo, msm, nodal, riquelme, nodal,
>        riquelme, vero, mikelsan
>
>Please sign at the bottom to support, and include your town.  Then
>>copy and e-mail to as many people as possible. If you receive this  list
>>with more than 50 names on it, please e-mail a copy of it to
>><mailto:sarabande@brandeis.edu>sarabande@brandeis.edu Even  if you decide
>>not to sign, please be
>>considerate and do not kill the  petition. Thank you.  It is best to copy
>>rather than forward the  petition.
>TEXT:
>>
>> The government of  Afghanistan is waging a war upon women. The situation is
>>getting so bad  that one person in an editorial of the times compared the
>>treatment of  women there to the treatment of Jews in  pre-Holocaust
>>Poland.
>>Since the Taliban took power in 1996, women  have had to wear burqua and
>>have been beaten and stoned in public for not  having the proper attire,
>>even if this means simply not having the mesh  covering in front of their
>>eyes. One woman was beaten to DEATH by an  angry mob of fundamentalists for
>>accidentally exposing her arm while she  was driving.  Another was stoned>to
>>death for trying to leave  the country with a man that was not a
>>relative.
>>Women are not  allowed to work or even go out in public without a male
>>relative;  professional women such as professors, translators,  doctors,
>>lawyers,artists and writers have been forced from their jobs and  stuffed
>>into their homes, so that depression is becoming so widespread  that it has
>>reached emergency levels.
>> There is no way in such an  extreme Islamic society to know the suicide
>>rate with certainty, but  relief workers are estimating that the suicide
rate
>>among women, who  cannot find proper medication and treatment for severe
>>depression and  would rather take their lives than live in such conditions,
>>has increased  significantly.   Homes where a woman is present must have
>>their  windows painted so that she can never be seen by outsiders.   They
>>must wear silent shoes so that they are never heard. Women live in  fear of
>>their lives for the slightest misbehavior. Because they cannot  work, those
>>without male relatives or husbands are either starving to  death or begging
>>on the street, even if they hold Ph.D.'s. There are  almost no medical
>>facilities available for women, and relief workers, in  protest, have mostly
>>left the country, taking medicine and psychologists  and other things
>>necessary to treat the sky-rocketing level of depression  among women.
>>  At one of the rare hospitals for women, a reporter  found still, nearly
>>lifeless bodies lying motionless on top of beds,  wrapped in their burqua,
>>unwilling to speak, eat, or do anything, but  slowly wasting away. Others
>>have gone mad and were seen crouched in  corners, perpetually rocking or
>>crying, most of them in fear.  One  doctor is considering, when what little
>>medication that is left finally  runs out, leaving these women in front of
>>the president's residence as a  form of peaceful protest. It is at the point
>>where the term 'human rights  violations' has become an understatement.
>>Husbands have the power of life  and death over their women relatives,
>>especially their wives, but an  angry mob has just as much right to stone or
>>beat a woman, often to  death, for exposing an inch of flesh or offending
>>them in the slightest  way.
>> Women enjoyed relative freedom, to work, dress generally as they  wanted,
>>and drive and appear in public alone until only 1996 -- the  rapidity of
>>this transition is the main reason for the depression and  suicide; women
>>who were once educators or doctors or simply used to basic  human
>>freedoms
>>are now severely restricted and treated as  sub-human in the name of
>>right-wing fundamentalist Islam.  It is not  their tradition or
>>'culture',
>>but is alien to them, and it is  extreme even  or those cultures where
>>fundamentalism is the rule  women by the Taliban.
>>
>>*************
>>    STATEMENT:     In signing this, we agree that the current  treatment of
>>women in Afghanistan is completely UNACCEPTABLE and deserves  support
>>and>action by the people of the all  members of the  United nations, United
>>States and the U.S. Government and that the  current situation overseas will
>>not be tolerated.  Women's Rights is  not a small issue anywhere and it
>>is UNACCEPTABLE for women in 1998 to be  treated as sub-human and so much as
>>property. Equality and human decency  is a RIGHT not a freedom, whether one
>>lives in Afghanistan or the United  States.
>>*****
>>1) Leslie London, Cape Town, South Africa
>>2)  Tim Holtz, Boston, MA
>>3) Joyce Millen, Cambridge, MA
>>4) Diane  Millen, Falls Church, Va.
>>5) Bill Millen, Falls Church, Va.
>>6)  Milt Eisner, McLean VA
>>7) Harriet Solomon, Springfield, VA
>>8)  Arlene Silikovitz, West Orange, NJ
>>9) Susanna Levin, New Rochelle,  NY
>>10) Ruth Slater, New Rochelle,NY
>>11) Elisabeth Keane, Westport,  CT
>>12) Mercedes Lopez-Morgan, Chappaqua, NY
>>13) Pete Morgan,  Chappaqua, NY
>>14) Aaron Cela, Chappaqua, NY
>>15) Michelle Lee, San  Francisco, CA
>>16) Karen Muiter, San Mateo, CA
>>17) Nate Walker,  North Hills, CA
>>18) Jasmyn Hatam  San Jose, CA
>>19) Josephine  Thompson, Pacific Grove, CA
>>20) Donnie Gallegos, San Francsico,  CA
>>21) Kate Lauer, New York, NY
>>22) Melanie H. Stein, New York,  NY
>>23) Emanuela Silvestri, Brussels, Belgium
>>24) Thinam Jakob,  Brussels, Belgium
>>25) Gillian Kenny, Brussels, Belgium
>>26) Barbara  Kj r, Brussels, Belgium
>>27) Kirsten Christensen, Brussels,  Belgium
>>28) Sandrine Branquet, Brussels, Belgium
>>29) Grazia  Fiorello-Reina, Brussels, Belgium
>>30) Nathalie Champenois, Brussels,  Belgium
>>31) Esra Tasasiz, Brussels, Belgium
>>32) Rebecca Townsend,  Brussels, Belgium
>>33) Anne Van Roy, Brussels, Belgium
>>34) Cynthia  Bogaert, Brussels, Belgium
>>35) Joelle Corroy, Brussels,  Belgium
>>36) Nicole Corroy, Brussels, Belgium
>>37) Linda Van Lierde,  Brussels, Belgium
>>38) Kris Dejonckheere,Brussels, Belgium
>>39)  Chantal Zoller, Brussels, Belgium
>>40) Elise Lennertz-Adam, Brussels,  Belgium
>>41) Francoise Pr=3DC8vot, Brussels, Belgium
>>42) Guy  Josens, Brussels, Belgium
>>43) Charles Susanne, Belgium
>>44) Tine  Valentincic, Slovenia
>>45) Kornel L. Kovacs, Szeged, Hungary
>>46)  Ines Soares, Sede Boqer, Israel
>>47) Eduardo Santero, Sevilla,  Spain
>>48) Angel Velasco, Sevilla, Spain
>>49)Senen Vilar=F3,  Barcelona, Spain
>>50) Isabel Fabregat Madrid, Spain
>>51) Gemma  Rguez-Tarduchy, Spain
>>52) Antonio Villalobo, Madrid Spain
>>53)  Dolores Solís, Madrid, Spain
>>54) Teresa Diaz-Mauriño,  Madrid, Spain
>>55) Carlos Lopez-Garcia, Valencia, Spain
>  56) Jose  M. Delgado-Garcia, Sevilla, Spain  
>57) Dolores López, Salamanca, Spain
>
>Dolores E. Lopez
>Dept. Biologia Celular y Patologia
>Alfonso X El Sabio s/n
>37007 Salamanca
>Tel. 34-923-294400 Ext. 1865
>FAX: 34-923-294549
>e.mail: lopezde@gugu.usal.es
>
>http://www-incyl.usal.es/
>
>
>
>



######################################################
Manuel  S. Malmierca, M.D., Ph.D.
Laboratory for the Neurobiology of Hearing
The Institute of Neuroscience of  'Castilla y Leon' (INCyL)
Faculty of Medicine. University of Salamanca
Campus 'Miguel de Unamuno'
37007 Salamanca - Spain

phone: 34 - 923 - 29 44 00, ext. 1861 or  --- 29 45 63
fax: 34 - 923 - 29 45 49
e-mail: msm@gugu.usal.es
http://www-incyl.usal.es/
######################################################