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Afghanistan
A woman among warlords: Interview with Malalai Joya
2009-11-22
Malalai Joya is an Afghan politician who has been called "the bravest woman in Afghanistan." As an elected member of the Wolesi Jirga from Farah province, she has publicly denounced the presence of what she considers warlords and war criminals in the parliament. She is the author of "A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice"
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Afghanistan
Afghan parliament begins naming absent MPs
2008-05-26
Afghanistan’s parliament has started naming stay-away lawmakers, with a brother of President Hamid Karzai first on the list, in a bid to stop no-shows hobbling its work, an official said Sunday. The lower house also voted Saturday to cut the salaries of MPs for each day they do not attend a session, the Speaker’s secretary Mohammad Saleh Saljoqi told AFP.

“We have decided to expose the names of our absent MPs,” the legislator said. “It’s a moral punishment,” he added.“At the end of each week we will release the names of those MPs absent during the week and at the end of the month the names of those absent during the month,” he said.

The first names to be given to the media were Qayoum Karzai, an elder brother of the president from Kandahar province, Fridoun Mohmand from Nangarhar and Abdul Wahab from Jawzjan. These legislators had not attended a single session in the current term, Saljoqi said. At every session 80 to 100 MPs were absent, about 60-70 for no reason, he said. The lower house, with 249 seats, was elected in the first full democratic parliamentary poll in 2005. Seven MPs have been killed and one, Malalai Joya, thrown out for allegedly insulting the assembly on television.

Low attendance has held up the work of the parliament for several months, one MP told AFP. Recent pay rises for teachers took 35 days to approve while the passage of a media bill, which needs two-thirds of the House to be present, has been delayed for several months.
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Afghanistan
IWPR - Woman Parlamentarian In-Hiding
2007-06-16
It sounds as if Afghanistan has it's own Anne Coulter.

For almost three weeks, the young legislator has been on the run, unable to show her face, meet openly with journalists or disclose her location, for fear of reprisals. She spoke to IWPR by telephone. An interview Joya gave to Tolo TV, in which she compared some of her colleagues to barnyard animals, riled lawmakers to such an extent that they voted to suspend her from parliament, although legal scholars say the decision has no basis in the law.

“A stable is better,” she said, in a video clip that was shown repeatedly in parliament on May 21. “At least there you have a donkey that can carry a load and a cow that gives milk.”

The remarks inflamed many members of parliament who already had a long and hostile relationship with Joya. She has often spoken out about the “warlords” who tore her country apart.
In May, 2006, she was pelted with water bottles and threatened with death after she called some of the mujahedin “criminals.”
Joya claims that her latest remarks to Tolo TV were misinterpreted.

“I was misquoted,” she told IWPR. “I made a distinction between members of parliament. We have two types of parliamentarians – those who are the real representatives of the people, although they are very few in number; and the majority, who are criminals and who came to the parliament by the use of force.”

Joya said that she had named some of the “criminals” in her remarks, but the references were “censored” out by Tolo. Her suspension, she insists, is a plot by her political enemies, of whom there are many.

“Malalai Joya has offended the whole Afghan nation,” said parliamentarian Haji Mullah Tarakhil, defending the decision to suspend her.

“If we say that parliamentarians are animals and parliament is a barn, that is abuse,” said Ahmad Bihzaad, another legislator. “Even if she only named one parliamentarian, it is clearly an insult.

“Those who sit in parliament are the elected representatives of the people, and should not be insulted.”

But legal experts say parliament has no right to suspend one of its members. Joya is an elected representative in her own right, they say, and as such can only be judged by the courts.

Stanekzai does not dispute that Joya committed an offense.

Following Joya’s suspension, her supporters staged rallies in her support in Farah, Nangahar, Baghlan and Kabul. In addition to demanding that the United Nations take action to restore Joya to her former position, they are asking that “warlords” be put on trial for crimes against humanity.

It was her tirade against the mujahedin that first launched Malalai Joya to international prominence in December, 2003, during the Constitutional Loya Jirga. Her question to the assembly, “Why have you again selected as committee chairmen those criminals who have brought such disasters to the Afghan people?” prompted angry outbursts from delegates, who demanded her removal from the hall. In the three and a half years since that outburst, Joya has traveled the world with her speeches against the former mujahedin fighters, and has become arguably the most famous woman in Afghanistan. She has also become a parliamentarian, winning a seat easily in Farah province in September 2005 election. But many of those whom she criticised in 2003 also entered parliament, some gaining very prominent positions, And they have shown no signs of forgiving or forgetting the former slights.

Even some of Joya’s female colleagues condemn her for her latest remarks, and call on her to make amends.

“Joya has offended the parliament,” said Norzia Atmar, a female member of parliament. “If she really wants to serve the people of Afghanistan and be the envoy of the people, we respect her and her ideas. If she apologises, she can come back to work.”

But Malalai Joya is unrepentant.

“If animals had a tongues with which to speak, they could sue me for comparing them to these parliamentarians,” she said. “Then I would apologise – but to the animals!”
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Afghanistan
Female Afghan MP removed for insulting parliament
2007-05-22
"Worse than a stable."
KABUL: Afghanistan’s most controversial female MP was removed from her post by the lower house of parliament on Monday for calling the house “worse than a stable”.

A videotape of the private TV interview in which Malalai Joya recently made the remarks was shown in the house before most delegates voted for her removal. “A stable is better, for there you have a donkey that carries a load and a cow that provides milk. The parliament is worse than a stable,” she was heard to remark. Joya, seen as controversial and outspoken for criticising some mujahideen leaders and commanders, could not be reached for comment. The 28-year old women’s rights activist is reasonably famous at home, but her real recognition came in the West when she spoke out against some mujahideen figures in 2003.

She won a seat in the 2005 parliamentary elections. There are 68 women MPs in parliament among the 248 lawmakers.
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Afghanistan
Courageous women risking all for democracy
2006-05-22
Councillors face deaths threats and resistance from their male counterparts

When Raazia Baloch, a mother of four with a thousand-watt smile, was elected to Helmand's provincial assembly last October, local authorities congratulated her with a Kalashnikov.

"They said it was for my protection," she said wryly. "But when I tried to fire it the bullet was stuck inside. Even that was broken."

Politics is a rough game in Afghanistan, where last year's landmark elections produced a crop of budding democrats, retired warlords, drug-smugglers and former Taliban fighters. For women, it is potentially fatal.

Two weeks ago inside the new national assembly in Kabul, turbaned parliamentarians hurled water bottles and bloody threats at Malalai Joya, a firebrand female deputy who dared criticised the country's mujahideen fighters. Now Ms Joya changes safe house every night and travels with three bodyguards.

The dangers are equally potent in Helmand province, 350 miles to the south. As 3,300 British troops deploy amid the worst Taliban violence in years, a small number of courageous women are leading their own campaign, armed with nothing but their voices.

Salima Sharifi was an 18-year-old pupil when she started campaigning for the provincial elections last summer. Months later she won 2,114 votes - and a place in history as Afghanistan's youngest female politician.

"I just wanted to make a difference," said the bookish young woman, sipping tea in a carpeted room adorned with Persian poetry. Her proud father, Muhammad Zahir, sat nearby. "I warned her it would be risky but she just smiled," he said.

That risk is very real in Helmand, where clashes with the Taliban are becoming an almost daily event. One French soldier and 16 Afghan soldiers died and 40 other troops were injured in two firefights on Saturday.

This is an explosive province where zealots torch schools and assassinate girls' teachers. Ms Sharifi has received several death threats, and the most recent caused her family to move house. Yet she remains undeterred. "Of course I am scared. But I am willing to make any sacrifice, even to die," she said.

Like Ms Sharifi, Ms Baloch, 33, returned from exile in Iran after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. She was married at 12; her police officer husband died in a bombing. She prizes education above all else. "The prophet says women should be educated. This is freedom," she said.

But her liberal notions are tempered by local culture and gritty necessities - she sought her four brothers' permission before standing for election, and her first daughter got married at 11.

"I was on my own and I couldn't afford to support her any more," she explained. Every morning the two friends don their burkas and pad through the streets of Lashkar Gah to take their seats at the provincial council, the shura.

Resistance

But democracy has proved a bitter disappointment. The four women councillors meet some resistance from the 11 male councillors - mostly bearded, conservative men who declare certain subjects "not women's business".

But the greater frustration is the shura's impotence. "We haven't done much to help the people," said Ms Sharifi gloomily. The council has only fig-leaf authority that gets little respect from underpaid and often corrupt officials. For example, Ms Baloch said, the council once ordered that a village near Goreshk be electrified, "but when we took a letter of authorisation to the power ministry, the desk clerk tore it in two".

Extending the reach of the Kabul government is a central plank of the British mission, which includes officials from the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development. But for the province's women campaigners, like all citizens, security is the first priority.

Two weeks ago an unknown gunman emptied his AK-47 into a van leaving the province's women's ministry, which is a stone's throw from the British base. The driver died instantly but miraculously the two female passengers survived. Fauzia Ulomi, the ministry head, believes she was the real target.

"It wasn't necessarily the Taliban. It could be anyone opposed to the government," she said, standing by the bloodstained steering wheel.

The ministry behind her, which runs internet, embroidery and beautician classes for 170 women, was closed. "Nobody dares come here anymore," she said, raising her voice as a British Chinook helicopter lifted off next door.

Ms Ulomi is as stubborn as she is fearless. Her husband left Afghanistan 21 years ago for school in Russia, never to return. She herself fled during the Taliban after threats for teaching girls.

An admiring western aid worker in Lashkar Gah describes her as "inspirational, presidential material - if only that were possible".

Now she continues her work thanks to foreign support. But without security the help rings hollow; both the deserted women's ministry and the bullet-pocked vehicle were bought with US money.

If the British mission to Helmand is to succeed, she warned, its soldiers must overcome Afghans' aversion to foreigners. "Even my father or grandfather would not accept the British. How will this generation be different?" she said. The British must also counter a powerful Taliban whispering campaign. "Most people believe the British are the enemy, that they are coming to take revenge for past defeats," said Ms Ulomi's bodyguard, Khan Almas, referring to British colonial disasters of the 1880s.

Ms Ulomi's family is pressuring her to quit her job. As ever, she refuses, but warns of a worsening situation. "I tell you, our enemies are winning," she said.
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Afghanistan
Female Afghan lawmaker moves every night with death threats
2006-05-15
KABUL, Afghanistan - A female Afghan lawmaker who called powerful armed leaders “criminals” two years ago and called some lawmakers warlords last week in Parliament now changes houses every night because of death threats, she said. Malalai Joya made her first comments against former warlords during Afghanistan’s constitutional council in December 2003. Last week, she was given her first extended chance to speak at Parliament since being elected last October.

“I thought it’s good to expose warlords, even in the national house,” the 28-year-old lawmaker said in an interview Saturday. “When I came into Parliament they understood I was this person that I was two years before.”

After her speech last Sunday, plastic water bottles were thrown at her and a scuffle broke out between her supporters and those denouncing her. No one was seriously injured, but Joya said lawmakers hurled insults at her. “They said, ’We will rape her.’ They said that in Parliament,” she said.
Some are stuck firmly in the 7th century.
Death threats were called to her office last week, and she now changes houses every night for security reasons, she said.

Speaking with power and passion, Joya said she can’t keep track of the number of death threats she’s received since her first speech to the constitutional council in 2003. She travels with three bodyguards, she said.

Mohammed Ismail Qasemyar, a former Supreme Court justice and professor of constitutional law at Kabul University, said he thinks Joya is good for the political process in Afghanistan and helps fuel the idea of freedom of expression. “She has the right to express herself, and then the person who does not agree with her, let him also stand up and say ’No,”’ said Qasemyar, a former presidential candidate. “I’m for tolerance, especially in the Parliament.”

Joya, who also speaks passionately for women’s rights, said she will keep speaking out against the people she says committed crimes against other Afghans during its past wars. “They know very well I will never be silent. I will never be afraid,” she said. “We will all die someday.”
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Afghanistan
Afghan MPs scuffle after woman criticises warlords
2006-05-08
Former warlords in Afghanistan’s parliament hurled water bottles and rushed at a woman MP on Sunday after she accused them of being involved in the deaths of thousands of people. Malalai Joya said bearded and turbaned MPs who were once warlords in the country’s decades of conflict had to be restrained from physically attacking her after a heated session of the four-month-old parliament. The uproar, in which several MPs rose from their chairs shouting, was shown on television. A cameraman from a private television station said one of the MPs had slapped him across the face while he was filming the scuffle.

Joya, who has had death threats against her after a similar outburst during a meeting to draw up a post-Taliban constitution in 2003, alleged that she had heard a prominent former warlord telling his men “to stab me with a knife”. “Several of them threw water bottles at me and many others rushed towards me to beat me up,” she said in an interview with AFP afterwards. Joya, in her late 20s, said the MPs had reacted angrily to her statement that some of the men who led the resistance to the 10-year Soviet occupation were responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians in a civil war that erupted after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.

Her comments were made in a debate about the anniversary last month of the defeat of communism in Afghanistan in 1993 when the government that replaced the Soviet administration was toppled. “I told them that we have two types of mujahideen — one who were really mujahideen and the second, those who killed tens of thousands of innocent people and who are criminals. My words sparked their anger,” she said..
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Afghanistan-Pak-India
Afghan Poll Panel Announces Results
2005-10-17
Afghanistan’s election authority announced final results for two of the country’s 34 provinces yesterday as hundreds of protesters blocked roads in two key cities alleging fraud in the count. Results from the Sept. 18 legislative elections had been finalized for Nimroz and Farah provinces, an official said, with others expected to be completed by the month’s end. The results confirmed a seat in the new Parliament for firebrand activist Malalai Joya, from Farah, who rose to prominence in conservative Afghanistan when she dared to criticize a feared warlord in a public meeting two years ago.

The elections for the Parliament and provincial councils were the first in the battered country in more than three decades and a key step in a transition to democracy mapped out after the hard-line Taleban regime was removed in late 2001. Joint Election Management Body (JEMB) chief of operations Richard Atwood told reporters the count had taken longer than anticipated mainly because of the time it took to investigate allegations of fraud. Most allegations could not be substantiated and the fraud that had been uncovered was not systematic or widespread, he said.

Nonetheless votes from about 680 polling stations, under three percent of the total, had been excluded from the count because of irregularities such as ballot stuffing, he said. About 50 of the hundreds of thousands of elections staff had also been sacked after allegations were made against them. Many of the complaints were from some of the more than 5,700 candidates who were clearly not going to win any of the nearly 670 seats up for grabs.
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Afghanistan/South Asia
It's Working: Warlord opponent wins parliament seat in Afganistan
2005-10-07
A 27-year-old woman and defiant critic of Afghanistan's powerful warlords won one of the first seats declared yesterday in provisional results from landmark parliamentary elections, a key step in the nation's transition to democracy.

"I'm very happy and thankful for Afghan men and women who voted for me," said Malalai Joya, a women's rights worker from Farah, who won one of her province's five seats in the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga, the national assembly.

"My first priorities when I go to parliament will be peace, security and stability, and to collect all the guns from warlords," she said.

Miss Joya rose to prominence by denouncing powerful warlords at a post-Taliban constitutional convention two years ago. Despite concerted United Nations-backed efforts to disarm militia leaders, they remain a dominant force in much of Afghanistan.
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Afghanistan/South Asia
Afghan Vote Counting Nears Completion
2005-10-05
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Powerful warlords, a former Taliban commander and women's activists were among the frontrunners as vote counting drew to a close Tuesday in Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections in more than 30 years.

Preliminary results will be announced starting Wednesday or Thursday and in phases, in the event of unrest, officials said. Losing candidates are expected to bombard election authorities with complaints and accusations of cheating. Final certified results are due Oct. 22.

The election Web site, which charts progress in the count, shows that in most provinces, the top-ranking candidates for the 249 Wolesi Jirga, or National Assembly, are warlords or leaders of mujahedeen factions, many of them active in the anti-Soviet resistance of the 1980s and the ruinous 1992-96 civil war that followed.

Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a former guerrilla leader and arch conservative suspected of having had links with al-Qaida is set to win a seat in Kabul. Hazrat Ali, a former provincial police chief accused of ties to illegal armed groups is leading in eastern Nangahar province. He and his militia were used by U.S. forces to hunt Taliban and al-Qaida.

But there are also plenty of new faces. Among the expected winners is 27-year-old Malalai Joya, a women's rights worker, who rose to prominence for daring to denounce powerful warlords at a post-Taliban constitutional convention two years ago. Women candidates are reserved a quarter of all seats.

Three former Taliban government ministers - including the minister of vice and virtue who imposed harsh Islamic restrictions on women during its rule - appear to have failed resoundingly at the ballot box, so far winning only a few hundred votes each. Yet in insurgency-plagued Zabul province, a former Taliban military commander, Abdul Salaam Rocketi, is leading. He battled against the U.S.-led ouster of the hardline militia, but has since denounced the rebels. He earned his last name for his skill in firing rockets.

In the capital, the two chief rivals to Karzai in last year's presidential election - ethnic Hazara leader Mohammed Mohaqeq and Younus Qanooni from the Northern Alliance - are leading.
It remains to be seen if they can marshal broader support within parliament to become an effective check on Karzai's dominance in Afghanistan's highly centralized political system.
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Afghanistan/South Asia
Interview with Mullah Omar
2004-04-13
Through the auspices of an influential jihadi leader, Mohammad Shehzad spoke with the Taliban supremo over the phone from Kabul. Shehzad, who had met Omar in a cave near Kandahar in October 2002, positively identified the voice.
Where are you? How is your health? What are you doing for food?
I cannot disclose my location due to security reasons. I change it very frequently. But I can tell you I am in Afghanistan. I am perfectly fine. Food should not be an issue for a true Muslim. God feeds me like he feeds other Muslims.

What is your strength? Who provides you arms and ammunition?
We are so many in numbers that our strength cannot be counted. Before vacating the country, we had dumped the arms and ammunition in huge quantities at various secret locations. We have enough to fight for decades. Moreover, we snatch arms and ammunition from the coalition forces just like we seized it from the Soviet forces.

What is your strategy?
We carry out guerilla activities. We recently carried out some suicide attacks that have been very fruitful by the grace of God. We have set up a special suicide squad that consists of 2,000 Taliban. This squad will make life hell for the US and its allies and force them out of Afghanistan. Insha Allah!

How did you manage to escape the US troops in Afghanistan? Are stories of your under-the-moonlight motorcycle getaway fact or myth?
This does not matter how I managed to escape. What really matters is God’s mercy, kindness and greatness. He has been protecting Osama bin Laden and myself when the US warplanes were intensively bombarding the Tora Bora caves. It was almost impossible to escape this attack. But by the grace of God, we did not receive a single scratch.

Did you flee to Pakistan?
I am not sure. Perhaps! The border between the two countries is so contiguous that it is extremely difficult to judge whether one is physically in Pakistan or Afghanistan. We don’t stay at one place and keep moving.

When was the last time you met or heard from Osama? Is he alive?
I met him months ago and we are in contact with each other. He is very much alive and kicking.

Where is he?
You think I will tell you! All I can says is, he is not in your (Pakistan) tribal areas!

Do you regret lending support to Osama and hosting him in your country?
Not at all. Osama is the greatest mujahid of the present times. He is not a terrorist as propagated by the US. He fought for Afghanistan. He saved Afghans. How could we regret hosting him? I asked the world to provide evidence again him. He was innocent. Therefore, nobody -- even Saudi Arabia -- could prove anything against him. We had tremendous pressure to expel him -- even from our friends like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Your [former Pakistan] interior minister Moinuddin Haider and even General Pervez Musharraf met me personally to seek Osama’s extradition. But I refused. We paid a very heavy price for this decision. But we proved that the Taliban were independent people. They were nobody’s product as portrayed by the media.

The Taliban could have escaped the US wrath had they expelled Osama

We don’t care for the US wrath! We are only afraid of God’s wrath. The US was hell-bent to topple our legitimate government. It would have still done so even had Osama been expelled.

Don’t you think you unnecessarily antagonised the international community? After all, what was the rationale behind destroying the Bamiyan Buddha?
I did not want to destroy the Bamiyan Buddha. In fact, some foreigners came to me and said they would like to conduct the repair work of the Bamiyan Buddha that had been slightly damaged due to rains. This shocked me. I thought, these callous people have no regard for thousands of living human beings -- the Afghans who are dying of hunger, but they are so concerned about non-living objects like the Buddha. This was extremely deplorable. That is why I ordered its destruction. Had they come for humanitarian work, I would have never ordered the Buddha’s destruction.

What is your opinion about General Musharraf?
General Musharraf was used by the US to topple our legitimate government. Thus he has committed a major sin. We will not forgive him! He is not loyal to Pakistan. He has betrayed the people of Pakistan as well as the Muslim nationhood. Like Bush, he too is a threat to the Muslim unity. I urge the people of Pakistan to wage jihad against Musharraf, remove him from power and punish him severely.

Afghans have chosen a constitution. They will be electing their president soon. Don’t you think the country is moving toward stability?
All the delegates of the Loya Jirga were criminals as rightly pointed out by a young lady [Malalai Joya]. She showed the courage of telling the delegates that they were murderers of innocent people of Afghanistan and they should be dragged to the national and international courts of justice. The Loya Jirga is a US ploy to derive legitimacy for the Karzai government. We denounce it. Our position is clear: we will kill all those who will register themselves as voters or cast votes in the forthcoming election. We will kill all those who support the US and its allies in any manner. America is the greatest evil on earth. It is the enemy of Islam. Whoever is the US friend is the enemy of Islam. Killing the enemies of Islam is jihad. We have already consigned to hell more than 1,000 infidels that include the Americans, their allies and their Afghan flunkies.

Have you issued a religious ruling to kill women that are working with aid agencies in Afghanistan?
Yes. As I said, whoever sides with the US or its allies deserves death. I am giving such women the last warning. If they do not dissociate themselves from these agencies within 30 days and confine themselves to the boundary wall of their houses, death will be their destiny. These agencies are preaching Christianity under the cover of development. Most of the Afghans have become apostate. They also deserve death. We will kill them.

Your former foreign minister Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil has turned renegade after striking a deal with the US. Another colleague Mullah Siddiqullah has deserted you. Does not it indicate ’demoralisation’ among the Taliban?
The Taliban are not demoralised. Despair is a sin. The Taliban are united. We are giving the US and the coalition forces a tough time. We are hunting them down like pigs. We are very happy to learn that the US is dispatching an additional contingent of more than 2,000 soldiers. This will be a huge herd of pigs for us to hunt down. We are waiting anxiously for their arrival!
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Afghanistan
Joya Speech Breaks Wall of Silence
2003-12-23
EFL
I think Afghanistan is going to be all right in the end.
Some call her a hero; some say she should be silenced. But the young female delegate from western Afghanistan who dared to call mujahedin leaders "criminals" has captivated her fellow citizens - even those who didn’t care much about the Constitutional Loya Jirga before. The speech of Malalai Joya, a 25-year-old delegate from Farah province, on the fourth day of the Loya Jirga was widely publicised, and now the public is clamouring to see photos of her.
One wonders what the Taliban did when it came to wanted posters.
Joya’s words caused a storm of controversy - not because her opinion was unusual, but because public criticism of jihadi leaders is rare and has always brought a severe backlash, including death threats.
Criticism of the murderers of innocents results in death threats. No surprise there.
But her speech, less than two minutes long, has broken through the wall of silence, and ordinary people now feel they can voice their criticism, too. Safia Shahab, a Kabuli in her mid-20s, said Joya is the leader of Afghan women. "Malalai’s speech was absolutely correct," she said. "These mujahedin blew Kabul city to pieces in the civil war."
That would be Hekmatyar, Islamically heroic former prime minister...
Mohammed Nasir, a 25-year-old resident of Khak-e-Jabar village near Kabul, is among Joya’s big fans after he heard about her speech on the radio. "If I get her picture, I will keep it with me, because she has pulled back the curtain to expose the facts," he said. Demonstrations have been held in support of Joya in several provinces, the BBC has reported.
Demonstrations against the jihadis in Afghanistan - this is surprising to me.
Some think so highly of Joya that they want to give her the title of "the second Malalai". Malalai is a famous 19th century Afghan woman who is credited with turning the tide in the battle of Maiwand, against the British. When the morning of the battle began with numerous casualties and Afghans began surrendering or running away, Malalai took up a sword to fight the British herself, singing an Afghan song, and inspired her countrymen to keep fighting.
The wahhabi deal doesn’t look like it’s any better of a fit for Afghanistan than communism was.
Joya’s foes, however, believe that her words were an offense to Islam and jihad.
Jihad was offended. Oh no. Maybe jihad should sample the decaf.
Abdul Halim Haqparast, 60, said that Joya be tried for saying such "rubbish, and insulting to Islam and mujahedin. She should be put on trial. And the court should be made off Ulemas [religious scholars].
Shouldn’t that be a jury of her peers? Guess they haven’t drafted that part yet.
"Any decision the Ulemas make should be implemented, so that other women don’t dare to do the same."
"Danged uppity wimmin!"
A student of Islamic law faculty at Kabul University, Sayed Afzel Sayidi, thinks that Malalai got it backwards, "The communists are the criminals who brought all this misfortune to our country - not the mujahedin. The mujahedin’s protection of our country’s daughters was a blessing, and they protected women from the evil of communists."
For 10 years I have protected my own daughter without making her where a full body gunny sack. So far so good. No communists have accosted her; we have kept her out of public schools.
While not directly using the words jihadis or mujahedin, Joya referred to some of the Loya Jirga delegates and leadership as criminals who "destroyed the country".
I guess she decided to forgo the appeasement option.
"They made our country the centre of national and international fighting," she said in her speech. "They were the people who put our country in its current condition, and want to again
. They should be tried in national and international courts. Even if our people forgive them, history will not." Her remarks caused some jihadi leaders to charge the stage, crying "Death to Communism!" and "Allahu Akbar [God is great]!"
I thought the Islamists were the fellow travelers of socialists and communists loke Arafat and Assad.
They are, whenever it suits them.
Loya Jirga chairman Sibghatullah Mujaddidi at first tried to remove Joya from the assembly, but backed down when other delegates objected. Joya was then asked to apologise, but she stood her ground and would not retract her accusations. Joya, who is staying with other delegates in the dorms of the Polytechnic near the Loya Jirga tent, has been given additional protection by the Afghan National Army and ISAF peacekeepers. The night of her speech, a group of men awakened the female delegates by shouting threats and calling her names. But security officials said they were not aware of any direct threats to Joya’s life.
Intimidation tactics? Does anyone remember the intimidation used by Hillary’s opponent in the race for the senate seat? Now that was some intimidation.
Sorry, Fred ran long - the rest was just incoherent remarks by her detractors. Edit as you like.
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