When women don't have rights. Chapter 857389056.

Most of the usual suspects are making this horrendous crime only about Islamofascism but I don't buy that. What it is about is what happens when women are treated as less than men, without their rights and freedoms:

A girl stoned to death in Somalia this week was 13 years old, not 23, contrary to earlier news reports. She had been accused of adultery in breach of Islamic law.

Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was killed on Monday 27 October, by a group of 50 men in a stadium in the southern port of Kismayu, in front of around 1,000 spectators. Somali journalists who had reported she was 23 have told Amnesty International that they judged her age by her physical appearance.

Inside the stadium, militia members opened fire when some of the witnesses to the killing attempted to save her life, and shot dead a boy who was a bystander. An al-Shabab spokeperson was later reported to have apologized for the death of the child, and said the militia member would be punished.

At one point during the stoning, Amnesty International has been told by numerous eyewitnesses that nurses were instructed to check whether Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was still alive when buried in the ground. They removed her from the ground, declared that she was, and she was replaced in the hole where she had been buried for the stoning to continue.

Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was accused of adultery, but sources told Amnesty International that she had in fact been raped by three men, and had attempted to report this rape to the al-Shabab militia who control Kismayo. It was this act that resulted in her being accused of adultery and detained. None of men she accused of rape were arrested.

Somalia is a totally basket case country, of course. However the west's contribution to its sad state should not go ignored. The US played with fire there and it's women who are getting burned.

That said, right now on Earth, women in fanatical Muslim societies do fare much worse than elsewhere. (That's if you don't count other nations where they are denied access to contraception or AIDS prevention, have no way to feed and care for their malnourished and sick children, are constantly threatened with rape, and are traded like cattle.)

Feminists have been writing about these problems for years but it wasn't until 9/11 that the male chattering classes had anything to say about these issues. After the terrorist attacks, suddenly one of the main excuses for invading Iraq was Saddam's ''rape rooms.''  As for Afghanistan, it was all about getting women out of their burqas and into schools.

Yeah, well, we saw how that turned out. Great. Fabulous.

And then there's this:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government is spending $30 million or more in Afghanistan to "protect and promote" human rights and to "strengthen the rule of law" by training judges, prosecutors and public defenders. It is part of our $1.3 billion Afghan aid program.

But Canada's effort to help modernize the legal system has been cast in doubt by the disturbing case of Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, a 23-year-old journalism student who was condemned to death earlier this year by a court in Mazar-e-Sharif after a five-minute trial.

He had been accused of blasphemy against Islam for raising questions in a university class about Islamic attitudes toward women's rights, and for distributing an Internet article that asks why Islam isn't modernized to ensure equality of the sexes.

In Afghanistan, blasphemy is punishable by death. This week an appeals court reduced the sentence to 20 years. Kambakhsh's family contends local warlords instigated the charges against him because his brother, also a journalist, had angered them with critical articles.

However this murky travesty of justice plays out, the Harper government ought to issue a strong protest. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who can pardon criminals, should be told that Canadian taxpayers cannot be expected to fund a "justice" system that can condemn someone to death after a quickie trial, with inadequate defence, for raising basic questions about human rights in a university classroom.

This looks more like the Taliban than any court Canadians would recognize as such. Canada's troops are not fighting and dying in Afghanistan to make the place safe for religious zealots who hold human life in low regard.

More here, which serves to point out how protesting against Shariah law only happens when it is politically expedient, ie. doesn't mess with the Conservative agenda.

For those simpletons on the Right who never tire of playing the alleged "Left/Islamism alliance" card, turnabout is fair play. Let's hear your alibis and excuses for continuing to prop up mediaeval Shariah law in Afghanistan. With the blood of our troops.

Throughout western history, women have been stoned for adultery, cast aside (and even executed) for not bearing male babies, burned at the stake for witchcraft and treated as chattel.

While we have come a long way from that, make no mistake. There are forces at play even here and now that would return us to a time when women were nothing more than property.

I weep for all the women everywhere who live in despair even while I rage at those women here who blithely ignore the fact that, while we have won many battles, the war for equality is far from over.

Comments

[...pat.]

Women's rights in Afghanistan have not improved since Sally Armstrong was first writing articles in Homemakers Magazine about what was going on. Any time it looks like there is progress, like girls attending school or having women teachers, threats and murders start happening to terrify women.
We need our government to stand up for womens' rights, in Afghanistan and every country in which we have civil servants or military.

[Alex]

Article 3 of Chapter 1 of Afghanistan's constitution provides as follows: "In Afghanistan, no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam." As far as I'm concerned, Afghanistan is a theocracy, and what Canadian troops are doing defending values so antithecal to Canadian norms is beyond me.

Mind you, given that gender equality is a fundamental constitutional norm enshrined in the Charter of Rights, I also wonder why we fund, by way of income tax exemptions, institutions such as the Catholic Church that are opposed to gender equality.

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

"For those simpletons on the Right who never tire of playing the alleged "Left/Islamism alliance" card, turnabout is fair play. Let's hear your alibis and excuses for continuing to prop up mediaeval Shariah law in Afghanistan. With the blood of our troops"

I assume I'm one such simpleton. I will admit you have got me there partly, but it is a bit difficult when I know in advance that my response will have to include material which will not not get past your moderators.

[jdv]

People cannot commit adultery on their own - so why are there never any punishments for the rapists at the very least on the grounds that they too have committed adultery?

Oh right, because it's really only about controlling women.