Afghan Women's Mission

Parliament member says her nation hasn’t been helped by U.S. invasion

Ventura County Star, March 21, 2006

By Charles Levin

Malalai Joya speaking in the Ventura College in the USA

Chuck Kirman/Star staff

Malalai Joya, a member of Afghanistan’s parliament, delivers speech at Ventura College on Monday. “I only want to be a voice (for) my suffering people who were always silenced,” she says.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, American forces drove the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban regime from power in Afghanistan, allowing the war-ravaged country to establish a democratic government.

At least that’s the story portrayed in American media, Malalai Joya, a member of the Afghan Parliament, said Monday to nearly 400 students and teachers at Ventura College.

Afghanistan today, however, is a much different place, she said.

Al-Qaida and Taliban forces still exercise power, while so-called “Northern Alliance” warlords control Parliament with tacit support from the U.S. government. Corruption is rampant, she said. And Islamic fundamentalists still commit atrocities against women.

Despite all the talk of “democratic reform and women’s activism … the reality is not what you might be aware of through the media,” said Joya, 27, who heads the Organization of Promoting Afghan Women’s Capabilities, and administers a health clinic in Farah, where she lives.

White House officials did not return a phone call for comment on Monday.

Joya stopped in Ventura as part of a nationwide, multi-city tour that began earlier this month.

Afghanistan has received $12 billion in aid but little of it reaches its most needy citizens, Joya said. Healthcare is so poor that roughly 700 children and 50 to 70 women die every day for lack of services, Joya said.

Northern Alliance warlords rape women as young as 11 and as old as 60. Husbands physically abuse wives because they don’t fear arrest or prosecution, she added.

“I come from a land where our people simply see (the) U.S. bringing a mock democracy,” Joya said, adding that U.S. officials should apologize to Afghanistan’s people for “fueling and supporting the most brutal and ignorant fundamentalists.”

A minority of educated Afghan residents yearn for true democracy but don’t speak out for fear of retaliation, Joya said in an interview after her speech. She’s touring the U.S. to expose the problems and encourage a dialogue with “educated,” “freedom-loving” people of Afghanistan.

The daughter of a former medical student, Joya was 4 in 1982 when her family fled Afghanistan during the war with the Soviet Union (which invaded and occupied the country from 1979 to 1989). They first lived in Iran and then Pakistan, where she finished her education at 19 and began teaching literacy courses to other women.

Joya returned to Afghanistan in 1998 when the Soviets left, established an orphanage and health clinic, and openly criticized the Taliban.

In Parliament, Joya has criticized warlords and survived assassination attempts, causing her to now travel with bodyguards.

“I won the elections with nothing in my hands except my people’s trust and love,” Joya said. “I only want to be a voice (for) my suffering people who were always silenced.”

East Bay visit draws often-hostile crowd critical of ‘sectarian’ viewpoints

Inside Bay Area, March 18, 2006

By Aman Mehrzai, CORRESPONDENT

FREMONT — Afghan Parliamentarian Malalai Joya knew she would face a divided crowd of mostly Afghans before she spoke Thursday at the Century House on Fremont Boulevard.

But she got more than she expected after a group of young Afghan men started protesting a few minutes into her speech, holding banners that read “Malalai (does) not represent women of Afghanistan.”

“What have you come here for?” interrupted one man. Heads turned to see the group of men lined up in the back of the room, protesting Joya.

“I have come here to speak for the women and success of Afghanistan,” Joya responded nervously. “You can come up here and beat me if you like. (I suggest) if you’re going to do it then do it, but I ask you to take your seats and let me speak my voice, then you can respond when I am finished.”

Joya is known for speaking out for women’s rights, but she is also critical of policies within the Karzai regime.

Joya said she came to the Bay Area as part of a larger U.S. and Canadian tour to express her views to the Americanpeople from a woman’s perspective.

She first spoke at the University of California, Berkeley at an event sponsored by the Gender and Women’s Studies Department.

Joya is critical of the electoral process in her country, saying that warlords used intimidation tactics of force and bribery to get people to vote for them.

“People don’t talk about the bad things happening, they don’t focus on the extreme corruption that could endanger our country from falling apart,” Joya said.

With many members of the government opposed to her views, Joya said she worries for her safety.

“Those who are in power know that I will expose them,” she said. “They don’t want me here to speak out. The president of Parliament gave a speech to encourage us not to tell the problems of Afghanistan to the West. I am concerned for my life. People have tried to kill me before, and I am not sure if I will be alive to ever come back.”

Throughout her speech in Fremont, supporters and opposers clapped and voiced outrage.

At one point, however, even those who opposed Joya applauded her encouragement for national unity.

Joya’s critics said she offers a sectarian view that does not represent the majority.

“Joya herself is part of the former communistic Maoist views of China, that is against religion and capitalism,” said a person who asked that his name not be used. “Her views are representative of one of many sects within Afghanistan today.”

Although she once went to a Revolutionary Afghan Women’s Association school as a refugee, Joya denies being a part of any group at all.

“I am against corruption,” Joya said. “Whether it is from a communist, Islamist, former Mujahideen or drug dealers. I don’t favor anything except for the success of our country by ridding it of corruption.”

The Washington Post

By Nora Boustany

Friday, March 17, 2006; A16

The warnings come by telephone or in leaflets: We will kidnap you, then kill you. You stand to benefit if you stop your struggle.

But Malalai Joya , 27, a member of Afghanistan’s parliament and a former refugee turned activist, is determined to tell it like it is, regardless of the risks and fear.

The threats have been frequent and real. In 2004, she said, two men plotted to shoot her after she gave a speech for International Women’s Day. Her bodyguards spirited her out of the building’s back door.

On her way to give an address in her native village in the western province of Farah, a bomb was detonated to disperse the crowd and intimidate her, she said.

In December, after being elected to the lower house of parliament — the country’s first in 30 years — Joya stood up and criticized the presence of warlords and other human rights abusers in the body. Some of the lawmakers pounded their fists on their desks and vowed to kill her.

“I know parliamentarians in other countries bang their desks, too. But in Afghanistan, outside they are waiting for you with guns,” she said in an interview Wednesday. “If I cannot tell the truth, I should resign, and I have no place in the parliament.”

Her truth is that warlords should not be permitted to hide behind “the mask of democracy to hold on to their chairs” and their pernicious pursuits at the expense of poor, “barefoot” Afghans who remain voiceless and disillusioned. The warlords are corrupt “war criminals” who should be tried, and incorrigible “drug dealers” who brought the country to its knees, she said.

Joya was 4 days old when her parents fled to Iran in 1978. That year, the Communist government seized power in Afghanistan, paving the way for the Soviet invasion. When she turned 7, the family moved to Pakistan so she could attend school.

The family moved to different cities, and from one miserable refugee camp to another. At 15, she became a teacher, dedicated to fighting the illiteracy in her midst. In 1998, she moved to Herat, in northwestern Afghanistan, and joined an underground movement that supported schools for girls at a time when they were banned by the repressive Taliban government.

“We had to shift from location to location, and we always carried the Koran so we could pretend we were in prayer, not in class,” she said. Taliban spies would follow groups of girls heading in the same direction, she recalled, in an attempt to find the schools and shut them down.

She derives inspiration from her namesake, Malalai of Maiwand, an Afghan heroine who in 1880 is said to have rushed onto the battlefield at Maiwand to rally Afghan forces fighting the British.

But the enemy of the modern-day Malalai is homegrown.

“The Taliban have been replaced. People have changed physically, but not mentally. They are all the same,” she said. “They are all Taliban in different clothes. They don’t really believe in democracy.”

“Corrupt leftovers from the Northern Alliance used their money and guns to return to power,” she said, referring to the main anti-Taliban militia. “Now they are the biggest risk for the future of Afghanistan.”

She lamented that $12 billion in foreign assistance and another $10 billion in the pipeline would not filter down to impoverished Afghans in need of clothing, schooling, books and medical care. Citing a UNICEF report, she said 700 children and 15 to 20 women were dying daily in Afghanistan because of poor public health services.

Joya forged her appeal among simple folk in Farah province by working for the Organization for Promoting Afghan Women’s Capabilities, a nongovernmental organization active in health care, education and income-generating projects. Human rights abuses against Afghan women continue in the post-Taliban period, she said, bringing up the case of Nadia Anjuman , a poet beaten to death by her husband in November, and Amina , a young woman who was stoned to death by fellow villagers last April after having an affair with a neighbor.

“I am young, and the women of Afghanistan need me to speak out against injustice,” she said when asked whether she feared for her safety. “My life has not really changed. I live in my uncle’s house in Kabul so as not to be alone.”

Of the 68 women in the parliament’s lower house, Joya said, some have been supportive of her efforts but others have avoided talking to her out of fear and pressure from their male peers.

Joya was in Washington this week to meet with leaders at Vital Voices, a nonprofit organization that promotes the role of women in leadership and governance. With funding and help from the French government, Vital Voices is trying to organize an eight-day program in June for Afghanistan’s female legislators to help them govern more effectively and to boost camaraderie.

“We want to provide them with some training. This is what they are asking for and some of them have never been in public office before,” said Alyse Nelson Bloom , a director of Vital Voices. The goal is to sharpen their negotiation techniques and help them formulate strategy together.

“I want to expose the drug lords and criminals who reduced Afghanistan to this mess,” Joya said. “I want to use the little chance of democracy we now have.”

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Read the original article here.

The Daily Californian

Friday, March 17, 2006

Malalai Joya, a 27-year-old female member of the Afghan parliament, spoke about the failures of democracy and women’s rights in her home country yesterday as part of her North American tour.

Joya, who has been hailed by the BBC as “the most famous woman in Afghanistan,” told an audience of more than 100 students, faculty and local residents about her struggles as one of the few women in the male-dominated Afghan government.

“Inside the parliament they don’t respect me as a human,” she said. “I want to be a voice for the suffering people who have been silenced.”

Joya fielded questions from the audience, many of which addressed current political conditions in Afghanistan after the fall of Taliban rule.

“I have to tell the reality of the situation and … there has been little changes from the Taliban rule until now,” she said. “Women do not have rights—this is not a democracy.”

Joya also spoke of the violence that her country has experienced in its history of civil war, and the personal violence she experiences daily, including four assassination attempts since 2003 when she famously argued that war lords within the Afghan parliament should be tried in international courts.

“My wounded country is not free. The United States troops have not developed democracy,” she said. “I won elections with nothing in my hands but my people’s trust and love.”

A handful of students in the Afghan Student Association listened to Joya, who they say has become a model for women in Afghanistan and in America.

“There’s a lot more progress to be made,” said junior Palwasha Aminy. “She’s a manifestation of all Afghan women and to be able to leave and come to America, I really respect her.”

Read the original article here.

Joya has survived several assassination attempts and continues to receive death threats.

Fosters Daily Democrat, Dover, New Hampshire

March 12, 2006

By Julie Masis, Staff Writer

DOVER — One of Afghanistan’s most famous woman told a crowd at the Quaker Meeting House Saturday that the situation in her country has not improved much since the fall of the Taliban.

Malalai Joya, 27, was recently elected to the Afghan Parliament and was called by the British Broadcasting Corporation “the most famous woman of Afghanistan.” She addressed about 100 people in a crowded room of the small church, during a tour of the United States to describe to Americans the true situation in her country.

The Taliban were replaced by similar fundamentalist warlords “with blood on their hands,” she said.

“In the name of God, democracy and peace, from my sisters — the women of Afghanistan — Taliban may have gone, but abuses are not over,” she said, “This democracy brought the Afghani people out of the pan but into the fire. The United States is supporting fundamentalists more than ever. It supports the Northern Alliance — the most brutal and ignorant fundamentalists.”

Despite the millions of dollars in aid the country receives, there has been no improvement — people still have no electricity, no education, no medical care, and no security, Joya said. Despite the 6,000 U.N. troops in Kabul, people are still killed in broad daylight, she said. Drug trafficking continues while poor farmers are stopped from growing poppies and sometimes have to “sell their daughters” to survive.

Joya said there is rampant misuse of public funds by government officials.

“Dear friends,” she continued, “Such a country cannot be free and liberated. My country is not free. The presence of U.S. troops is not to establish democracy: it is only for its own strategic interest. America was never concerned about the establishment of democracy.”

Joya also said that the situation for women in Afghanistan has not improved much, despite the fact that women are no longer forced to be covered head to toe with a burka. She said women and girls who attend school still receive threats, and as a result the majority are still illiterate.

Joya has survived several assassination attempts and continues to receive death threats.

She took questions after her speech, speaking in English but using a translator’s assistance.

The first question came from Natalie Healy, of Exeter. Healy said her son Dan was killed while serving in Afghanistan last year, and she wore his army photograph pinned to her jacket.

“What do you want? How do you hope to achieve it? What’s your alternative?” she asked Joya.

Joya did not immediately understand that the woman’s son was killed in Afghanistan. She repeated that the United States should stop supporting the Northern Alliance and other similar fundamentalist organizations.

When Joya understood the woman’s son was killed in Afghanistan, she said, “On behalf of the people of Afghanistan, I’d like to express my condolences.”

Joan Sergio, who was seated in front of Healy, said, “Just because I speak out against the war, doesn’t mean I don’t support the people who are fighting — for whatever they think they’re fighting for.”

“For our protection!” screamed Healy, and someone told her to calm down.

After the questions, Healy went up to talk to Joya, and the two women gave each other a hug.

Joya said she learned to speak English while attending a refugee school in Iran and Pakistan. She returned to Afghanistan in 1998.

Tom Jackson, with NH Peace Alliance and the Seacoast Peace Response, invited Joya to Dover after noticing that she was coming to speak in Cambridge, Mass. Jackson said Joya might return to New Hampshire for a talk at Dartmouth College before going back to Afghanistan on March 25.

This is Joya’s first visit to the United States since her election.

Joya said her people need moral and material support. For more information about Joya and her American tour, visit http://afghanwomensmission.org/index.php. Donations will be used for Joya’s U.S. tour and for the Hamoon Clinic, a free health center Joya runs in the Farah Province of Afghanistan.

The Capital Times (Madison, WI)

By Judy Ettenhofer, opinion editor

Malalai Joya travels around Kabul, Afghanistan, with three bodyguards, yet she has no illusions that she is truly safe.

“I receive lots of death threats, but I will never compromise,” says the human rights activist and member of Afghanistan’s National Assembly.

Joya, wise far beyond her 27 years, speaks out for democracy and the “freedom-loving people” in her native country. “There is no fundamental change in Afghanistan” since the overthrow of the Taliban by the United States and its allies in 2001, she says. The brutal Taliban leaders were simply replaced by the brutal warlords who had battled each other during the Afghan civil war of the 1990s.

“The democracy the U.S. brought to Afghanistan isn’t working,” Joya asserts. The warlords, now in power both at the local level and in the national government, “have learned to talk about democracy and women’s rights but they don’t really support them.” The players in Afghanistan may have changed physically, she says, “but mentally they are still the Taliban” in their disrespect for human rights.

Joya brought her message to Madison for International Women’s Day, speaking on the University of Wisconsin campus Wednesday night and today. Earlier Wednesday she stopped by The Capital Times to meet with our editorial board. She fearlessly describes the hellish life that so many Afghans continue to experience under the warlords – and she blames the United States and its allies for using the warlords to defeat the Taliban but doing little to prevent them from filling the resulting power vacuum in Afghanistan.

She says life is better for Afghans in Kabul, the capital, and a few other cities, but in most of the outlying provinces, women still must cover themselves head to toe, education is discouraged to the point of schools being burned, and well-armed local warlords keep the citizens oppressed and fearful. Desperate from being repressed, many women commit suicide, Joya says.

Joya gained international prominence in 2003 when she stood up at the Loya Jirga, Afghanistan’s grand council, to denounce the warlords, calling for them to be tried as war criminals. Her speech shocked the nation but clearly resonated deeply with her people. Her home province of Farah subsequently elected her to the National Assembly by a large margin. The assembly finally was seated in December, the first such democratic parliament in Afghanistan in more than 30 years. Joya again took to the microphone to decry the presence of criminal warlords and drug smugglers among her fellow assemblymen. She was shouted down. Death threats are common, and both her home and office have been attacked.

But Malalai Joya will not stop speaking the truth she so fervently believes. When asked what the United States could or should do to improve life in Afghanistan, she responds: “Make the warlords powerless.” She says they are fortified by large caches of weapons buried in remote areas, and getting them disarmed should be a goal. She also says that U.S. monetary aid to Afghanistan has been diverted to the warlords, who use it to buy weapons.

“Day by day they become more powerful,” she says, noting that President Hamid Karzai has compromised with the warlords after promising he wouldn’t make peace with them.

Joya will spend most of March traveling around the United States to tell her story of life under the warlords in Afghanistan and why she and other Afghan women continue their struggle for true democracy and freedom. She does not back down from the fight.

“My people are with me,” Joya says. The warlords “can cut all of the flowers, but they will never stop the coming of spring.”

Afghanistan’s most popular MPs is fearless Malalai Joya

Globe and Mail, March 9, 2006

MARGARET WENTE

Not many people are willing to put their comfort, their safety, even their lives, on the line for their beliefs. Here are three brave women who are doing just that. Their courage, and their refusal to be silenced, are an inspiration — and also a sobering reminder that for millions of girls and women living under religious oppression, equal rights remain a distant dream.

One of Afghanistan’s most popular MPs is a fearless (some say foolhardy) 27-year-old named Malalai Joya. As an outspoken advocate for women’s rights, she loathes the Taliban. But she insists on pointing out that the current government includes some unsavoury characters, too — including powerful former warlords. “Now they have a mask of democracy,” she said this week, during a speaking tour in the U.S. “But they do not believe in democracy. They do not believe in women’s rights, human rights.”

Ms. Joya has never known a time when Afghanistan was not at war. She grew up mostly in refugee camps. After the Taliban came to power, she slipped back into the country and conducted secret classes for women. Her friends have urged her to tread lightly and be cautious. But on the first day of parliament last December, she rose to her feet and denounced the “criminal warlords” with blood on their hands who sat beside her. She was shouted down by furious MPs, and showered with death threats.

The good news in Afghanistan is that a woman like Ms. Joya could be elected. The bad news is that out in the provinces, beyond Kabul, the miserable lot of girls and women hasn’t changed much since the Taliban were overthrown. She wants the world to know that: “How can a country improve when 50 per cent of its population are silenced? It’s like a bird with only one wing.”

If you’re a Muslim, it’s dangerous to be labelled an apostate, even if you live in the West. Ask Salman Rushdie. Or ask Wafa Sultan, an Arab-American woman from Syria who has chosen to go head to head with Islamist clerics on Al-Jazeera. Two weeks ago, in Arabic, she argued, “The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. . . . It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on the other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings.”

“Are you a heretic?” demanded her adversary. “If you are a heretic, there is no point in rebuking you, since you have blasphemed against Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran.”

After her TV appearance, according to a news report, she was denounced by an imam in Damascus who said she was harming Islam “more than it was harmed by the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.” But this forceful woman will not be silenced. Here is how she rebuked the cleric: “Brother, you can believe in stones, as long as you don’t throw them at me.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was once such a devout Muslim that she demonstrated against The Satanic Verses. Born in Somalia, she emigrated to the Netherlands, where she became an advocate for immigrant Muslim women abused by their husbands and families. Eventually, she was elected to parliament. Her life changed after her colleague, filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was assassinated by a Dutch-born Muslim fanatic because of a movie the two had made that attacked Muslims’ treatment of women. The brutal murder rocked the nation. Now she, too, has been branded an apostate, and lives in seclusion under armed guard.

“I have come to the conclusion that Islam can and should be reformed if Muslims want to live at peace,” she says. She has spoken out passionately against sharia, and, like Salman Rushdie, has blasted the European politicians who bowed to Muslim pressure groups over the Mohammed cartoons. She, too, knows that speaking out could cost her life. “If I don’t [survive], well, I’ve lived my life as I want to live it,” she says. “So be it.”

These are feminists of the most courageous kind. They have courage to speak the truth in dangerous times to those who do not want to hear it. We should honour them.

Read original article here.

Afghan freedom fighter and Assemblywoman Malalai Joya comes to Pasadena to speak for a nation still on the brink

By Joe Piasecki

Hearing her tiny voice and polite but limited English over a crackly international cellular connection, it’s hard to picture Malalai Joya as her reputation precedes her – as one of the bravest and most powerful women in Afghanistan.

But it’s not how her words sound; it’s what this 27-year-old is saying that’s so powerful.

In Joya’s lifetime, Afghanistan has seen two military invasions, a bloody civil war and the rise and fall of the Taliban. Leader of a feminist organization and health clinic, she was elected to serve on the country’s 2003 Loya Jirga, or grand council, to form yet another new government. There she shocked everyone with a short speech decrying other representatives who are some of the most powerful men in the country as war criminals who should be tried for crimes against humanity. Several members of the Assembly are said to have very bloody pasts, including a militia leader accused of war crimes by Human Rights Watch, which reports warlords as having undue influence over and access to government affairs, and a former Taliban militia commander.

“They made our country the center of national and international fighting,” she said to the council, a place where young women were traditionally banned. “They were the people who put our country in its current condition, and want to again. Even if our people forgive them, history will not.”

It’s an alarming statement, not only for the Afghans who have to live with it, but also for Americans who hope their government is living up to the values it espouses.

The speech itself prompted angry shouts and even death threats, which have now become routine in her life, from many on the council. But her constituents loved it, and in September voted her into the Afghan National Assembly. Hoping that her people will some day be safe and free, she says she will continue to try to expose those who work against gender equality, human rights and democracy – even if nobody else will.

As part of a nationwide tour sponsored by the Afghan Women’s Mission, an advocacy group founded by KPFK 90.7 FM radio personality and Pasadena resident Sonali Kolhatkar, Joya will speak at 7 p.m. Monday at Immanuel Presbyterian Church, 663 S. Berendo St., Los Angeles. For information, call (626) 676-7884.

Then at noon on Tuesday, Joya will speak at Caltech’s Avery Hall, 332 S. Michigan Ave. in Pasadena. To RSVP, call (626) 395-3221.

Sometimes relying on a translator, she spoke to the Weekly on Friday from Canada.

PW: In America, being a member of Congress is considered a pretty cushy job. For you, being a national Afghan leader has been downright dangerous.

Joya: Several times I have received death threats. After my speech at the Loya Jirga, my life completely changed. When people became aware I was one of the candidates for parliament [the national Assembly], they started threatening me more. Before my election to parliament they attacked my office and my house. I do not feel secure, especially when I come to Kabul.

What is it about Afghan politics that would allow you to become such a target?

Members of parliament have links to warlords, and some of the leaders are warlords. Some of them have links with mafia. Every time I have a speech I receive lots of support from the innocent people outside parliament. Inside parliament, some warlords and people in power with links to warlords shout against me every time I speak because I’m telling the truth.

Why are former warlords back in power?

Because they have two faces. They deceive people. Some think if we vote for this person they will help once again. [Many “warlords” are credited with the defeat of Soviet invaders.] They have the support of foreign countries; lots of money. That is the reason they found their way into the parliament. Now they have a mask of democracy but … they do not believe in democracy. They do not believe in women’s rights, human rights. And those people destroyed our country. This is the reason we are now really worried about the situation in our country, and the main reason most people in Afghanistan didn’t attend the parliamentary election. … They want to vote for a person who doesn’t have blood on their hands.

If it’s so far gone, what can the government hope to achieve?

The last hope of our people – they hope this parliament will help us. But these same people, you will see in the future, will never help our people. There are those people, you know, who would like to be in power forever.

There is no fundamental change in the situation in Afghanistan. You should not see only Kabul; you should see the faraway provinces. Not only does the situation of women become worse day by day, there is no security. All of the people are very poor. They do not have health and education facilities. Instead of the Taliban, now [leaders] are brothers of Taliban. But I do not want to say all of them; some of them are good people. They do not have a bloody hand in the history of Afghanistan.

Do they also hate you because you are a woman?

Yeah. Of course. On one hand they cannot suffer – tolerate – me because I’m a woman and I expose them: two reasons against me.

Have women’s rights improved since the Americans arrived?

Unfortunately, there is no fundamental change in the situation of women. Women, even in Kabul, they do not feel real security, and women do not have real liberation. You should see faraway provinces. For example [a woman] has been killed by her husband in Herat. Maybe you heard in the media?

No.

Nobody will ask why he did [it] because he understands the head of justice is a person who is against women. Maybe you hear about Amana? She has been killed by local warlords, but nobody asks. Maybe you heard about Musca? They raped her. And today, today we received another report in a province in Afghanistan that a woman committed suicide. In the western provinces of Afghanistan women, day by day, they are killing themselves. They prefer to die than be alive. People in power do not believe in women’s rights and did lots of crimes in the past. Now they do not want that our women should be liberated.

What’s America doing wrong?

On one hand I am really happy that the people, the democracy loving, freedom-loving people support us. We need their support and we’re proud. On the other hand the [Afghan] people really have suspicion about the help from the government of the United States. There are those people who did lots of crimes on our innocent people. Every person in Afghanistan knew about those criminals then, but now they have learned how to speak about democracy.

So if it’s all going wrong, why do what you do?

To my life I will defend and be in Afghanistan because I will not betray the innocent people. On the other hand, why I decided to be a member of parliament is because of the people who trusted me and came to my office and supported me and said, ‘Please, on behalf of us, you should be in parliament. We just trust you.’

I know very well about all the risks and all of the sacrifices and all of the problems, but I wanted to be the voice of suffering people. If they try to make laws against the people of this country, I will stand up and expose them.

Why come to America?

My message to the United States: Do not forget the people of Afghanistan.

Read the original article here.