On October 15, 2012, Afghan Women’s Mission Co-Director Sonali Kolhatkar was a featured guest on Huffpost Live hosted by Ahmed Shihab-Eldin. The program focused on the on-going attacks against women in Afghanistan. Other panelists included Manizha Naderi, Executive Director of Women for Afghan Women, Jean MacKenzie, correspondent with the Global Post, and Jennifer Hunt, an Army Reservist who served in Afghanistan.
The panelists were asked the following question:
Violence against women spiked to its highest level since the Taliban’s fall. Will a U.S. troop withdrawal contribute to an increase in the region’s assault on women?
Watch the video below:
By Jeff Gottlieb, Los Angeles Times
February 14, 2012
More than 200 nonprofit groups, from animals rights organizations to political activists, said most of their donated funds appear to have vanished after the organization that watched over the money suddenly ceased operations last month.
The International Humanities Center closed its offices, took down its Web page and informed its clients by email that it has ceased operation. The center served as an umbrella organization for small nonprofit groups, handling their donations and performing administrative duties.
Read More...By GARETH PORTER Inter Press Service WASHINGTON – General David Petraeus wrote in his 2006 counter-insurgency manual that the United States command headquarters should establish a “narrative” for the counter-insurgency war – a simple storyline that provides a framework for understanding events, both for the population of the country in question and for international audiences.Read More…
Read More...San Francisco Chronicle
By Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
A prominent Afghan feminist and war critic was granted a visa to enter the United States on Thursday – by the same State Department office that turned her down last week – and belatedly started on a speaking tour that is scheduled to wind up in San Francisco. The case of Malalai Joya is the latest of several in which the Obama administration, after at first refusing entry, has allowed a visit by a foreigner who has criticized policies of the United States or its allies.
Read More...By Shirin Sadeghi
New America Media
Malalai Joya was 26 when she became the youngest woman ever elected as a member of parliament in Afghanistan. Today, she is the country’s most famous woman – a political activist who was just denied a visa for a book tour to the United States because she is “unemployed” and “lives underground,” according to what she was told by the U.S. embassy officer who stamped the denial.
To watch a 2003 video of Malalai Joya, then in her early 20s, making a speech is to witness phenomenal courage and the power of speaking out. Joya, now 32, was an elected delegate to the Loya Jirga (an assembly to debate the proposed Afghan constitution) when she stood up and publicly criticised the room full of men.
Read More...The Afghan War is Brutal, Expensive, Unpopular, and Ineffective – So Why Are We Spending Billions on It?
March 3, 2011
It is no wonder that leading Afghan activist and former Member of Parliament, Malalai Joya, wants the U.S. and NATO out of her country. Having come face-to-face with the brutality of war and the power that U.S.-backed war criminals wield, Joya has been demanding an end to the occupation for years. In her book, A Woman Among Warlords, just out in paperback, Joya explains the situation of ordinary Afghans: “[w]e are caught between two enemies – the Taliban on one side and the U.S./NATO forces and their warlord allies on the other.” She goes on to say that “for our people, Obama is a warmonger, like Bush. He follows the same disastrous policies, only with much more determination and force.”
Read More...Nine boys collecting firewood to heat their homes in the eastern Afghanistan mountains were killed by NATO helicopter gunners who mistook them for insurgents, according to a statement on Wednesday by NATO, which apologized for the mistake.
The boys, who were 9 to 15 years old, were attacked on Tuesday in what amounted to one of the war’s worst cases of mistaken killings by foreign-led forces. The victims included two sets of brothers. A 10th boy survived.
Read More...Outrage at threat to secret shelters where women hide from death
February 9, 2011
A child bride, forced to marry at 11, fled and took refuge in one of the shelters. (Photo: Getty)
By Jerome Starkey
in Kabul
The Scotsman
Secret shelters which protect women from murder, forced marriages and ritual mutilation will be turned into “virtual prisons” that make women less safe, under Afghan government plans to wrest control of them from local charities, women’s activists warned yesterday.
The exact whereabouts of the safe houses and the identities of the women who hide there are carefully guarded secrets, but proposals seen by The Scotsman would put government staff in charge and force them to inform police of anyone who goes inside.
Campaigners said the draft legislation was pandering to conservative male prejudices that shelters harbour prostitutes, and they warned it would roll back years of hard-won progress towards improving women’s rights.
Read More...By Jonathon Burch
Reuters Canada
KABUL (Reuters) – Foreign military assertions that security in Afghanistan is improving are intended to sway Western public opinion ahead of a troop withdrawal and do not reflect the reality on the ground, a security advice group said.
“Indisputable evidence” that conditions are deteriorating included a two-thirds rise in insurgent attacks in 2010 compared with the previous year, according to the EU-funded organization, that advises aid groups on safety.
Read More...
So Cal Events |
Events and Announcements
- RAWA Projects facing Serious Danger of Closure: Please Make a Donation!
- 7th Annual Fair Trade and Conscious Gifts holiday Bazaar
- Huffpost Live: No Escaping the Taliban
- ‘The Courage to Say No to Misogyny’
- Help us Rebuild This Women’s History Month
- Nonprofits say funds gone with center’s closing
>> Read More...
Afghanistan News Wire
- Huffpost Live: No Escaping the Taliban
- Nonprofits fear money in center’s care vanished
- Gareth Porter: Taliban Hijack the US’s Narrative
- Malalai Joya, Afghan war critic, gets U.S. visa
- U.S. Government Embarrassed by Afghan Woman Again
- Malalai Joya Named by Guardian Newspaper as Top 100 Women
>> Read More...
Press Releases
- Tenth Anniversary of Afghanistan War: RAWA Member Available for Interviews
- U.S. Responds to Broad Public Campaign, Grants Malalai Joya Visa!
- US government denies entry visa to Afghan women’s rights activist and author Malalai Joya
- Leading Afghan Feminist Urges Immediate end to U.S. War
- A Woman Among Warlords – Malalai Joya Available for Interviews
- Afghan Women’s Rights Activist Calls for an End to US Occupation
>> Read More...