News from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
RAWA News
News from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
RAWA News


 

 

 





 


 


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  • August 21, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Go tell the world about our fake election
    Foreign Policy: So it finally happened. The election that we've been waiting for and looking forward to at least since last winter took place yesterday all over the country. I'll refrain from writing anything about the rest of the country. I'll just be talking about the things in Kandahar that I saw and was able to confirm from here on the ground. There weren't so many foreign journalists down here and most are unlikely to publish detailed accounts of what happened and the things that they saw; NPR decided not to run a piece on the election down here, judging that "one piece from Kabul was enough."      Full news...

  • August 21, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Kim Sengupta: A dubious litmus test for the poll
    The Independent: Call it the mystery of the invisible voters. At one polling station in Nad-e-Ali, just over 400 people had voted by 1pm. Three hours later, the figure had apparently surged to some 1,200. This despite the fact the streets were empty, all shops and businesses were shut and an Afghan army officer saying his men standing guard had hardly seen any civilians heading to these particular voting booths.      Full news...


  • August 20, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Malalai Joya: Don’t be fooled by this democratic façade – the people are betrayed
    The Independent: Like millions of Afghans, I have no hope in the results of today's election. In a country ruled by warlords, occupation forces, Taliban terrorists, drug money and guns, no one can expect a legitimate or fair vote. Even international observers have been speaking about widespread fraud and intimidation and, among the people on the street, there is a common refrain: the real winner has already been picked by the White House.      Full news...

  • August 18, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Threat of Violence Overshadows Afghan Elections
    Spiegel Online: Afghans go to the polls Thursday to vote for a new president. But if the incumbent Hamid Karzai declares victory after the first round of elections, his opponents, who fear vote-rigging, are threatening to take to the streets. Observers warn that things could get bloody.      Full news...

  • August 18, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Corruption fears over Afghan poll
    BBC News: Voting cards are being sold openly and candidates have been offering thousands of dollars in bribes for votes. The findings came as campaigning closed before Thursday's election, in which incumbent President Hamid Karzai faces 41 challengers. A senior Afghan Independent Election Commission official denied to the BBC that voting cards were being sold.      Full news...

  • August 18, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Electoral fraud revealed in Afghanistan
    Politics.co.uk: The legitimacy of this week's crucial Afghanistan elections has been called into question, after the full price Britain's soldiers are paying to provide security for the poll was revealed yesterday. It emerged this morning that bribes have been offered to buy votes and that voting cards have been put up for sale. An undercover Afghan journalist working for the BBC discovered he could purchase voting cards at £6 per card.      Full news...

  • August 18, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Observers See Pattern Of Fraud Before Afghan Vote
    Associated Press: Voting observers expect fraud during next week's Afghan presidential election and warn that cheating will most likely take place at polling stations in remote or dangerous areas where independent monitors won't be able to be present. A suspiciously high number of women _ far more than men _ have been registered to vote in culturally conservative provinces where President Hamid Karzai expects to do well, a leading election monitor said this week.      Full news...

  • August 17, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Young Heratis Have Little Faith in Afghan Elections
    IWPR: “Everybody knows the United States will choose the next president of Afghanistan,” said Shah Rahman Afzali. “We should not participate in sham elections.” Afzali is not an illiterate farmer, indoctrinated by the Taliban about “puppet presidents” and “infidel elections”, but a student at Herat University. And he is by no means alone in his views. Among Herat’s intellectual elite, it is widely believed that NATO countries will determine the outcome of Afghanistan’s presidential and provincial council elections, scheduled for August 20.      Full news...

  • August 16, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Will Election end the warlordism and corruption in Afghanistan?
    RAWA News: 20th August 2009 Elections is coursing in Afghanistan in a time that the call for improved governance, particularly at sub national level in Afghanistan has become increasingly urgent, as expressions and concerns over dissatisfaction, an increasingly virulent insurgency and the corrosive effects of corruption which has become part of a complex triad (corruption, opium economy and terrorism) where warlords, insurgents, factional leaders, corrupt officials and drug dealers are contributing to its sustenance has increasingly grown.      Full news...

  • August 15, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghanistan: Journalists caught between government, Taliban
    Amnesty International: Days before the Afghan presidential elections, journalists from thirteen provinces in Afghanistan have told Amnesty International that they had recently been threatened by Afghan government officials because of their critical reporting. At the same time, the Taliban and other anti-government groups have also stepped up attacks against journalists and blocked nearly all reporting from areas under their control.      Full news...

  • August 14, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghanistan: New Law Threatens Women’s Freedom
    Human Rights Watch: “Karzai has made an unthinkable deal to sell Afghan women out in return for the support of fundamentalists in the August 20 election,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “So much for any credentials he claimed as a moderate on women’s issues.” A copy of the final law seen by Human Rights Watch shows that many regressive articles remain, which strip away women’s rights that are enshrined in Afghanistan’s constitution. The law gives a husband the right to withdraw basic maintenance from his wife, including food, if she refuses to obey his sexual demands.      Full news...

  • August 14, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghanistan passes ‘barbaric’ law diminishing women’s rights
    The Guardian: Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review. The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.      Full news...

  • August 13, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Deadly contractor incident sours Afghans
    Los Angeles Times: Mirza Mohammed Dost stood at the foot of his son's grave, near a headstone that read, "Raheb Dost, martyred by Americans." His son was no insurgent, Dost said. He was walking home from prayers on the night of May 5 when he was shot and killed on a busy Kabul street by U.S. security contractors. "The Americans must answer for my son's death," Dost said as a large crowd of young men murmured in approval.      Full news...

  • August 12, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Silence is Violence: End the Abuse of Women in Afghanistan
    Inter-Parliamentary Union: In early July 2009, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) published a report on the situation of women in Afghanistan entitled Silence Is Violence: End the Abuse of Women in Afghanistan. The report describes and denounces the pervasive violence against women in Afghanistan, which unfortunately has been allowed to continue almost unabated since the demise of the Taliban regime and has crushed hopes for a better life for women in the country. The report focuses on sexual violence and on violence that inhibits the participation of women in public life.      Full news...

  • August 10, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    ISAF air strike kills three civilians in Uruzgan
    PAN: Three civilians were killed and fourth injured in an air strike by NATO-led troops in Chora district of southern Uruzgan province, officials said on Monday. Deputy police chief Col. Mohammad Nabi Khan told Pajhwok Afghan News the people came under attack in Sanger village soon after they climbed a mound to make a call from their mobile.      Full news...

  • August 7, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Karzai family’s wealth ‘fuelling insurgency’
    The Telegraph.co.uk: The president's brothers, Mahmoud and Ahmed Wali, are accused of having amassed millions of pounds since Mr Karzai took office even as most of Afghanistan remains poverty stricken. The development has fuelled a popular disillusionment and anger with the leadership that the Taliban has exploited. Ahmed Wali Karzai has been dogged by allegations, which he denies, of involvement in the country's $3 billion opium trade, while Mahmoud Karzai has been accused of using his brother's influence to build a business empire that has made him one of the country's wealthiest men.      Full news...

  • August 6, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Five Afghan farmers killed by air strike of Western forces: police
    CBC: Five farmers were killed by an air strike from Western forces, Afghan police said Thursday. The farmers were loading cucumbers into a taxi in the rural Zhari district near Kandahar city when a military helicopter fired on them, said district police Chief Niaz Mohammad Sarhadi. Sarhadi alleged the strike was conducted by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Lt.-Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker said the U.S. military believes the air strike hit a group of militants loading munitions into a van.      Full news...

  • August 6, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Opium ravages Afghan villages
    Toronto Star: In dozens of mountain hamlets in this remote corner of Afghanistan, opium addiction has become so entrenched that whole families – from toddlers to old men – are addicts. Cut off from the rest of the world by glacial streams, the addiction moves from house to house, infecting entire communities. From just one family years ago, at least half the people of Sarab, population 1,850, are now addicts.      Full news...

  • August 6, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Road side bomb kill 26 in Afghanistan, including 21 members of a wedding party
    Los Angeles Times: Separate roadside bombings in volatile Helmand province today killed at least 26 people, including 21 members of a wedding party and five police officers, Afghan officials said.Also today, the U.S. military reported the death a day earlier of an American soldier in western Afghanistan. That brought the number of U.S. troops killed so far this month to seven, out of a total of 11 Western military fatalities      Full news...

  • August 5, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Children among civilians killed by foreign troops in Kandahar
    PAN: Four civilians three of them children - were killed during an attack of foreign troops Tuesday night in Arghandab district of southern Kandahar province, civilians said. Dozens of protesting villagers brought the bodies this morning from their village to the governor's house in Kandahar City, about 12 kilometers away.      Full news...

  • August 5, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Army Resister Victor Agosto Speaks Out on Why He’s Refusing to Fight in Afghanistan
    Democracy Now: US Army Specialist Victor Agosto faces up to one month in jail for refusing to deploy to Afghanistan. After returning from thirteen months in Iraq, Agosto became a victim of the stop-loss program that has extended the tours of more than 140,000 troops beyond their contracts since 9/11. Just hours before his court-martial, Agosto speaks out from his military base at Fort Hood, Texas. [includes rush transcript]      Full news...

  • August 4, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Amnesty International’s Ten-Point Agenda for Human Rights in Afghanistan
    Amnesty International: As the Afghan people prepare to go to the polls in elections on 20 August, Amnesty International today published a Ten-Point Agenda for Human Rights in Afghanistan, targeting the 38 presidential candidates, in a bid to improve the country’s desperate human rights situation. “We have spoken to many Afghan citizens who expressed frustration and anger towards the Afghan government’s apparent indifference to human rights,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International Director for Asia-Pacific.      Full news...

  • August 2, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Students and Teachers Are Innocent
    e-Ariana: There is a common consensus that armed violence will increase across Afghanistan in the summer months, most probably into unprecedented levels since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001. Summers have consistently witnessed the peak of insurgency-related violence over the past seven years as insurgent fighters find the weather and the geography suitable to launch hit-and-run attacks, raid and terrorize villages, perpetuate suicide and roadside explosions, and create a situation of widespread insecurity.      Full news...

  • July 31, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghan civilian deaths increase
    BBC News: More than 1,000 people were killed in the first six months of 2009, according to a UN report. The UN blamed insurgents for using increasingly deadly modes of attack. It also said air strikes by government-allied forces were responsible. There has been widespread concern in Afghanistan about civilian death tolls. In June the US military called for better training in an effort to reduce the numbers of civilian deaths.      Full news...

  • July 30, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Rape - The Most Vulnerable Victims of Corruption
    Inter Press Service: Being powerful in Afghanistan does not only mean that you can break the laws of government. It also means that you can abuse your fellow citizens in the most awful ways and never be punished. The rich and powerful in Afghanistan are known to rape women and young girls with impunity. The government's inability to stop these horrors have only encouraged those in positions of authority to continue abusing Afghanistan's most vulnerable.      Full news...

  • July 29, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Child Rapist Police Return Behind U.S., UK Troops
    Inter Press Service: The strategy of the major U.S. and British military offensive in Afghanistan's Helmand province aimed at wresting it from the Taliban is based on bringing back Afghan army and police to maintain permanent control of the population, so the foreign forces can move on to another insurgent stronghold. But that strategy poses an acute problem: The police in the province, who are linked to the local warlord, have committed systematic abuses against the population, including the abduction and rape of pre-teen boys, according to village elders who met with British officers.      Full news...

  • July 28, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Malalai Joya: The woman who will not be silenced
    The Independent: I am not sure how many more days I will be alive," Malalai Joya says quietly. The warlords who make up the new "democratic" government in Afghanistan have been sending bullets and bombs to kill this tiny 30-year-old from the refugee camps for years – and they seem to be getting closer with every attempt. The story of Malalai Joya turns everything we have been told about Afghanistan inside out. In the official rhetoric, she is what we have been fighting for.      Full news...

  • July 28, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Baghlan governor's Nephew Rapes Kid
    Quqnoos: The sixth-grade schoolchild who has been working part time at a tailoring shop in Baghlan-e Markazi district told Quqnoos that nephew of the district governor, Amir Gul, kidnapped and raped him nearly two weeks ago. “They took me and fasten my mouth, eyes and feet and then did the thing to me,” the boy, Ahmad, (not his real name) described. “I went to governor with my letter, he took me to a private room and said that this [the rape] issue can be resolved in gathering with elders, not the government, so don’t disgrace me,” Ahmad’s father described the behavior of the governor.      Full news...

  • July 25, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghan woman MP lists 'enemies'
    BBC News: Afghanistan's people are trapped between powerful enemies, according to Malalai Joya, an outspoken member of the Afghan parliament. Ms Joya named those "enemies" as Nato forces who bomb from the sky, the resurgent Islamists of the Taliban, and the country's "warlords". Speaking to anti-war activists in London she insisted Afghans were capable of governing themselves. Ms Joya technically remains an MP, but has been suspended since 2007, on charges of insulting the parliament after she compared it to a zoo.      Full news...



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