Democracy Now: It was 10 years ago today when former President George W. Bush announced the beginning of the war on Afghanistan. It has now has become the longest-running war in U.S. history and there is no end in sight. The Taliban remains in control of major parts of the nation. Peace talks have collapsed. Civilian and troop casualties continue to mount. more...

RAWA News: Ten years ago, when the terrorist attacks took place on September 11th, 2001, my colleagues and I in the Afghan Women’s Mission watched in shock and horror as thousands of innocent people lost their lives. We knew right away however, that retaliation would be aimed at Afghanistan and that all Afghans, including the women of the underground organization RAWA who we worked in solidarity with, would become targets of American bombs. more...

NB Media Co-Op: On Saturday, March 19, about 60 people gathered at the artist-run gallery, Gallery Connexion in Fredericton, to support the work of the Revolutionary Association of the Women in Afghanistan (RAWA). RAWA began in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1977 under the leadership of Meena, a health worker and activist who was assassinated with two of her family members. more...

WISA: Tuesday March 8 is International Women’s Day’s centenary and WISA will be joining women all across the world, to celebrate this significant landmark, remembering the advances that have been made and recognising the work that’s still to be done for women’s rights. WISA invites you and your friends to join us on this very special day for an evening of unique and inspiring stories of women’s empowerment... more...

AlterNet: After the July Time magazine cover of the noseless Afghan woman was exposed as a fake (it turns out that the woman’s nose wasn’t removed by the Taliban, as Time reported, but by her husband three years earlier – see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/abdulhadi-hairan/times-aisha-story-is-fake_b_692123.html), I decided it was impossible to get an accurate view of the war in Afghanistan from any US source. Which led me to consult the website of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (www.rawa.org) for the first time in several years. more...

During Taliban rule, RAWA ran secret girls’ schools and filmed the state killings of women using cameras hidden under their burqas, creating footage that helped to fuel international outrage against the regime. Members are careful to regularly move their meetings to different houses, and no one keeps any incriminating materials in their home. more...

I was talking about Afghanistan the other day and it was pointed out that the USA has an obligation to stay in Afghanistan because of the Taliban’s religious fundamentalism and atrocious treatment of women.... women of Afghanistan want freedom and human rights. In fact they have been fighting for them for a long time.... RAWA continued to stand for democracy, human rights, and secular values. more...

On the 14th of November 2009 a solidarity fund raiser was held to support the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). The fund raiser was held as part of the ‘Edinburgh Anti-Militarist’ week long event to oppose the Annual General meeting of NATO which took place in Edinburgh between the 13th to the 17th of November this year. more...

RAWA, the nation’s oldest and most illustrious feminist group, opposes the U.S. occupation. RAWA argues that the real enemy of women’s rights in Afghanistan is religious fundamentalism.... RAWA sees the U.S. occupation entrenching a regime stuffed to the gills with fundamentalists, reactionaries, misogynists, criminals, and warlords. more...

RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, is an underground women’s organization and one of the groups that predicted a long, deadly engagement. Zoya is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of RAWA and she joined us to talk about what would really be best for the women–and all the people–of Afghanistan. more...

Zoya, a 28-year-old member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), travels the world to speak out against the Northern Alliance, the Taliban, and the U.S./NATO occupation of her country. Representing RAWA’s Foreign Committee, Zoya spoke at the Des Moines Public Library on October 6. more...

Politics. Love. Sexuality. Oppression. These were the recurring themes in Andrea Gibson’s slam poetry performance last Thursday evening. Her performance, played before a nearly full house, was a benefit event for the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). All of the ticket sales and donations from the evening supported RAWA. more...

The women of Afghanistan, after eight years of occupation, offer conflicting advice, depending on their position in society. If the women are in Kabul, are educated and affluent, and have family members in office or are part of the government, they sometimes say, “our safety is in danger if U.S. troops leave." If the women are in the countryside (and 90% are) they say, “get the troops out now. Our rights, our freedoms, our safety have not improved in eight years of occupation — and the occupation fuels the insurgency.” more...

The 2002 book “Zoya’s Story: An Afghan Woman’s Struggle for Freedom” describes a life under the Taliban where women were largely confined to their homes and barred from working or going to school. .... Recently Zoya was in our area and VPR’s Steve Zind spoke with her. He began by asking her about the situation for women in Afghanistan today. more...

A few Sundays ago I attended a meeting at the Friends Meeting House in Amesbury. I listened to a talk by Zoya, an Afghani woman who is touring America as a representative of Revolutionary Association of Afghanistan Women (RAWA). Zoya spoke of the terrible conditions that prevail in her country, conditions such as gang rape, kidnapping, forced marriages, illiteracy, poor drinking water, lack of electricity, doctors and hospitals. more...

thepeoplesvoice.org: Afghan women reveal censored view of occupations, false liberations, tell U.S. and allies to get out of their country. The people of the world should know that though the disgusting, ludicrous and oppressive rule of Taliban was over in our ill-fated Afghanistan, this never means the end of the horrible miseries of our tortured women. more...

As the White House debates on how best to continue the war, an Afghan women’s rights activist who goes by the name Zoya, is touring the United States with the message that the occupation must end and that the US is not acting in the interests of ordinary Afghans. more...

Zoya, whose name has not been revealed in order to protect her identity, has been touring the United States in an effort to spread the message of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, a woman’s rights group. Women have traditionally been treated as a subclass in Afghanistan, and under Taliban rule, were denied access to many basic rights, such as education. more...

Open Media Boston: The keynote speech will be given by "Zoya" an Afghan activist from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). The Kabul based activist is on a bi-coastal speaking tour of the U.S. including Saturday’s Copley Square rally, Newton, MA on Sunday, Medford, MA and Portsmouth NH on Monday and then Los Angeles and San Francisco, CA. more...

CommonDreams: Brave New Foundation partnered with the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), which requested a total of $15,000 to ensure that every family in the refugee camp would receive oil, rice, sugar, and blankets. All funds went directly to RAWA. The funds were raised due to the generosity of Brave New Foundation members in a short period of two weeks. more...

Eight years following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the human rights situation has not improved, Zoya, a representative of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, said in a lecture in Carpenter hall on Tuesday. Zoya, who does not disclose her full name for security purposes, described how her organization seeks to promote peace, democracy and human rights in her lecture, “War and Reconstruction from the Perspective of Afghanistan’s Revolutionary Women.” more...

On the 8th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Her identity is hidden for her safety. Zoya, a young woman from Afghanistan spoke recently in Des Moines about the tragic situation in that country. She spoke on behalf of RAWA, The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. Watch and listen to the passion, truth and courage of her message. No more troops. No more violence. No more war. more...

The Des Moines Register: As the young Afghan woman saw it, she had three choices in the face of the repression and violence ... She could flee to America to live with relatives. She could commit suicide, as so many other despondent young Afghans were doing. Or she could do what she did and take what she calls “the way of struggle,” by joining the resistance. more...

The Daily Iowan: Although she answers to “Zoya,” it is not her real name. As a speaker for Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan, a group pushing women’s rights, she must keep her identity a secret. The 28-year-old spoke to a group of roughly 60 UI students and community members at the Pappajohn Business Building on Monday night. more...

Democracy Now: We turn now to a voice from Afghanistan. Zoya is a member of the radical underground organization called RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. She was a child during the Soviet invasion of her country. As a teenager, the mujahideen or warlords killed her activist parents. She fled with her grandmother to a refugee camp in neighboring Pakistan but later returned to her country to document life under Taliban rule. more...

Afghan Women’s Mission: Afghan Women’s Mission is pleased to announce a nation-wide tour of Zoya, a member of RAWA in October 2009, exactly 8 years after the start of the US war. Zoya will share the message of RAWA in New York, Washington DC, Boston, Iowa, Los Angeles, Berkeley, and San Francisco. more...

If we glance back at history, US governments have never brought “peace” and “democracy” in any country. It has only forced war on countless countries, causing destruction, killing and disasters. Afghanistan is no exception. Everyone knows that the so-called “war on terror” of the US and allies is just a fake. It is an open secret today that all of the terrorist bands in Afghanistan and region, from Osama to Al-Qaeda, Taliban and Mujahideen warlords are products of the Cold War-era White House. more...

As the government of Afghanistan, under the watchful eye of Washington, prepared for its second national election since the U.S. invasion of 2001, we sat down with Shazia, a Kabul resident and member of the powerful organization RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. We wanted to ask her about the current situation in her country, and the experiences of women under the regime of Hamid Karzai and his American backers. more...

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to talk with Shazia Shekib (an alias), a member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. She was in the US to speak at the Veterans for Peace National Convention and share her on-the-ground perspective on the war in Afghanistan. We talked about RAWA’s take on the US strategy for Afghanistan, and the debate in the US about how to best serve women’s rights in Afghanistan. more...

AlterNet: The U.S. invasion has been a failure, and increasing the U.S. troop presence will not undo the destruction the war has brought to the daily lives of Afghans. As humanitarians and as feminists, it is the welfare of the civilian population in Afghanistan that concerns us most deeply. That is why it was so discouraging to learn that the Feminist Majority Foundation has lent its good name -- and the good name of feminism in general -- to advocate for further troop escalation and war. more...

RAWA is an organisation that defends women’s and human rights and advocates for a fully democratic and secular government in Afghanistan. Shazia (not her real name) lives in Kabul and teaches English, translates RAWA publications for the international media and visits rural Afghanistan as a reporter for RAWA’s magazine, Payam-e-Zan (Message of Women). During her recent speaking tour in Australia she spoke to Green Left Weekly’s Katherine Bradstreet. more...

That was the blunt message to Australia _ and the US _ on Sunday from Shazia Shakib, a member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). Shazia Shakib (not her real name, to protect her) on Sunday in Hobart gave a first-hand account of the struggle for human rights, democracy and secular values in her country, a nation ravaged by war and religious fundamentalism. more...

The Revolutionary Association for the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) is a group dedicated to help women suffering harsh gender inequality in the Middle East. The political group was formed in 1977. Shazia Shakib from RAWA is in Australia to raise support for the plight of women in war-torn Afghanistan. Featured in story: Shazia Shakib. more...

For 30 years, through Soviet occupation, Taliban rule, the American invasion and the current reign of warlords, RAWA has continued the struggle for democracy, human rights and secularism. RAWA runs health clinics, schools and adult education centres. The Taliban prohibited the education of girls and are still destroying schools and murdering teachers who dare to continue teaching. more...

Shazia is a spokesperson for the clandestine and underground movement known as RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. Hated and banned in Afghanistan, RAWA operates through a well-organized network of women throughout Afghanistan and in Pakistan. The group is fiercely anti-fundamentalist, and abhors the use of Islam as an excuse for the continued persecution of women. For the past 30 years it has called for a democratic and secular government in Afghanistan. But it’s a call that continues to fall on deaf ears. more...

RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, has been campaigning for democracy and better human rights for women in that country for more than 30 years. Shazia Shakib is the alias of a member of RAWA in Australia at the moment, whose real name we’re not using for her protection on return to Afghanistan. She says that while many people in the West think that women in Afghanistan are now free, in reality the few rights they have are under threat. more...

Upon hearing of the recent change in Shiite law in Afghanistan, one that stipulates that a wife "is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires," V-Day reached out to long time V-Day activist and representative of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, (RAWA) Zoya for her comments on behalf of RAWA and the women of her country. more...

In June, 2008, the Afghan activist Zoya of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) testified to the Human Rights Commission of the German Parliament (Bundestag) in an effort to persuade the German government to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. At that time Elsa Rassbach, a U.S. citizen living in Germany, interviewed Zoya in Berlin. This is the first release of the interview in English. more...

The US invaded Afghanistan to fulfil its geo-political, economic and regional strategic interests and to change Afghanistan into a strong military base in the region. Since Afghanistan is the heart of Asia, it would serve as a strong base for controlling surrounding countries like Pakistan, China, Iran and above all the Central Asian Republics. Additionally, as a superpower, it continues to occupy Afghanistan to combat rising powers like Russia and China, who are becoming greater rivals for the US in the economic, military and political fields. more...

WW4 Report: The co-educational schools that the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) runs for Afghan refugees in Pakistan are under attack from Pakistan's new Taliban movement. This statement from RAWA was forwarded to us by the Support Association for the Women of Afghanistan (SAWA-Australia), April 21. more...