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jebbypalMore about Pakistani oppression of Women from Nicholas D. Kristof
Augh, it's a toss up of what pisses me off more about this. The fact that our government is seriously considering selling Pakistan F16 fighter planes or the way that crimes against women are treated in that country.
Hello, Mr. Bush, you are about to sell F16 - PLANES CAPABLE OF CARRYING NUCLEAR WEAPONS - to one of the few countries that has actively threatened to use it's nuclear weapons on a neighboring country in the last 5 years!!! Are you nuts? I'm sure that India is loving this. i can't believe that the president who is supposed to be so concerned about nuclear proliferation in the third world is selling advanced military transport planes to a nuclear capable country!!
Who's next? North Korea?
And then that the White House would invite into the oval office the leader of a country that publically commits such flagrant human rights abuses against it's population?? Outrageous.
From Kristof's NYTimes column:
Yet it's crucial to remember that Ms. Mukhtaran is only a window into a much larger problem - the neglect by General Musharraf's government of the plight of women and girls.
Early this year, for example, a doctor named Shazia Khalid reported that she had been gang-raped in a government-owned natural-gas plant. Instead of treating her medically, officials drugged her into unconsciousness for three days to keep her quiet and then shipped her to a psychiatric hospital.
When she persisted in trying to report the rape, she was held under house arrest in Karachi. The police suggested that since she had cash, she must have been working as a prostitute. Dr. Shazia's husband has stood by her, but his grandfather was quoted as suggesting that Dr. Shazia had disgraced the family and should be killed.
On average, a woman is raped every two hours in Pakistan, and two women a day die in honor killings. ....
Earlier this year, for example, police reported that a village council had punished a man for having an affair by ordering his 2-year-old niece to be given in marriage to a 40-year-old man.
In another case this year, an 11-year-girl named Nazan was rescued from her husband's family, which beat her, broke her arm and strung her from the ceiling because she didn't work hard enough.
Then there are Pakistan's hudood laws, which have been used to imprison thousands of women who report rapes. If rape victims cannot provide four male witnesses to the crime, they risk being whipped for adultery, since they acknowledge illicit sex and cannot prove rape.
That the leader of this country has invited the President of Pakistan to meet in the oval office not a week after that leader was instrumentally in illegally detaining an innocent woman for the simple act of speaking up about injustices that she and every other woman in that country face on a daily basis is shameful.
Actions speak louder than words, Mr. President. And I've yet to see a single act on the behalf of your administration that has in any way encouraged true democracy or even simple gender equality in the third world. You should reexamine your agenda and reconsult the New Testament.
Augh, it's a toss up of what pisses me off more about this. The fact that our government is seriously considering selling Pakistan F16 fighter planes or the way that crimes against women are treated in that country.
Hello, Mr. Bush, you are about to sell F16 - PLANES CAPABLE OF CARRYING NUCLEAR WEAPONS - to one of the few countries that has actively threatened to use it's nuclear weapons on a neighboring country in the last 5 years!!! Are you nuts? I'm sure that India is loving this. i can't believe that the president who is supposed to be so concerned about nuclear proliferation in the third world is selling advanced military transport planes to a nuclear capable country!!
Who's next? North Korea?
And then that the White House would invite into the oval office the leader of a country that publically commits such flagrant human rights abuses against it's population?? Outrageous.
From Kristof's NYTimes column:
Yet it's crucial to remember that Ms. Mukhtaran is only a window into a much larger problem - the neglect by General Musharraf's government of the plight of women and girls.
Early this year, for example, a doctor named Shazia Khalid reported that she had been gang-raped in a government-owned natural-gas plant. Instead of treating her medically, officials drugged her into unconsciousness for three days to keep her quiet and then shipped her to a psychiatric hospital.
When she persisted in trying to report the rape, she was held under house arrest in Karachi. The police suggested that since she had cash, she must have been working as a prostitute. Dr. Shazia's husband has stood by her, but his grandfather was quoted as suggesting that Dr. Shazia had disgraced the family and should be killed.
On average, a woman is raped every two hours in Pakistan, and two women a day die in honor killings. ....
Earlier this year, for example, police reported that a village council had punished a man for having an affair by ordering his 2-year-old niece to be given in marriage to a 40-year-old man.
In another case this year, an 11-year-girl named Nazan was rescued from her husband's family, which beat her, broke her arm and strung her from the ceiling because she didn't work hard enough.
Then there are Pakistan's hudood laws, which have been used to imprison thousands of women who report rapes. If rape victims cannot provide four male witnesses to the crime, they risk being whipped for adultery, since they acknowledge illicit sex and cannot prove rape.
That the leader of this country has invited the President of Pakistan to meet in the oval office not a week after that leader was instrumentally in illegally detaining an innocent woman for the simple act of speaking up about injustices that she and every other woman in that country face on a daily basis is shameful.
Actions speak louder than words, Mr. President. And I've yet to see a single act on the behalf of your administration that has in any way encouraged true democracy or even simple gender equality in the third world. You should reexamine your agenda and reconsult the New Testament.
