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


 

 

 





 


 


Help RAWA: Order from our wish list on Amazon.com

RAWA Channel on Youtube

Follow RAWA on Twitter

Join RAWA on Facebook


  • January 14, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Rogue militias abuse rural Afghans
    Aljazeera: “At night, they come out on the roads with their faces covered,” said Obaid Sediq, a resident of Central Baghlan in northeastern Afghanistan. “Many times they have stopped our car and emptied our pockets. They have guns and you can't say anything back.” The Arbakai, semi-official local militias, have committed tremendous abuses in Afghanistan’s northeastern provinces of Kunduz and Baghlan.      Full news...

  • December 1, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Impunity prevails in Afghanistan
    By International Justice Tribune (IJT 118): Transitional Justice has not yet come to Afghanistan, notwithstanding the legacy of three eras of conflict: the communist/Soviet rule (1978–1992), rule of the mujaheddin (1992–1996), and the Taliban regime (1996–2001). This is due mainly to a lack of Constitutional authorisation and statutory tools, exacerbated by the 2010 Amnesty Law and an absence of political will.      Full news...


  • November 18, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Bacha Bazi: Afghanistan’s darkest secret
    Indiana Daily Student: It was pushed back by the Taliban, but now, some experts say it’s making a comeback. It’s something so controversial that most Afghans refuse to talk about it or to even acknowledge its existence. It’s 1 a.m. in northern Afghanistan, and a group of armed, powerful older men are gathered around a very young boy dressed in women’s clothing with fake breasts and bells around his ankles.      Full news...

  • November 12, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Harper’s flip-flop on Afghanistan
    The Vancouver Sun: We should have known it was too good to be true. Harper’s many, many repetitions of his government’s commitment to get all the troops out by July 2011 are well known. I think he may actually have meant it because by these repeated statements he framed the issue so strongly that all Canadians expected – and supported – the withdrawal.      Full news...


  • November 3, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Any hope I had in the ballot box bringing change in Afghanistan is gone
    The Guardian: One year ago Hamid Karzai was declared re-elected as president of Afghanistan, ending an election that had no legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary Afghans. The presidential election last year was a fraud, with ballot stuffing, vote buying and massive corruption reported by the world’s media. Even if the independent election commission had not cancelled the planned run-off between Karzai and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, it would have represented only a choice of the “same donkey with a new saddle”.      Full news...

  • October 12, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghan Warlords, a Larger Stability Threat Than Taliban
    The Epoch Times: In Afghanistan, where warlords and their militias still play a large role in ruling the tribal lands, U.S. and NATO forces are faced with the challenge of stabilizing the country as a democracy while not overstepping their boundaries. Warlords and their militias have a lengthy history in Afghanistan, and the current war is just another phase in that history.      Full news...

  • October 4, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghanistan nine years on
    Le Monde diplomatique: On 7 October 2001, the US-led invasion of Afghanistan began. Barely a month later, Kabul fell to the Northern Alliance. It was, it seemed to observers at the time, a short and relatively painless conflict. A new type of war that relied on using proxy local militia commanders and the power of the American air force appeared to have been fought with ease.      Full news...

  • September 25, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghan Media Freedoms Erode
    The Wall Street Journal: President Hamid Karzai's government is taking a series of steps to chip away at the country's media freedoms, one of Afghanistan's few success stories since the Taliban regime's downfall nine years ago. In the past week, the government ordered the shutdown of Benawa.com, a popular Pashtu-language news website, following requests by the first vice president, Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim. It is also moving to outlaw another widely followed muckraking journalism site, Tolafghan.com.      Full news...

  • September 24, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Warlord TV
    Foreign Policy: On Thursday nights, when Afghan Star, a popular American Idol-like talent show, is on TV, the streets of Kabul are noticeably quieter. Even in a land torn apart by fighting and where people consume less energy per person than in any other country, somehow 65 local television stations still manage to beam programming to captivated viewers in Afghanistan's larger cities.      Full news...

  • August 26, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    U.S. occupation increases violence against Afghan women
    Workers World: The Aug. 9 Time magazine featured a shocking cover photo: a portrait of an Afghan woman named Aisha whose nose had been cut off, allegedly by the Taliban, for resisting abusive in-laws. Time used this picture to build support for U.S. troops as a “last line of defense” that will not “abandon” Afghan women against an advancing Taliban. None of this was true.      Full news...

  • August 23, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghanistan: Land of Injustice and Warlords
    Veterans Today: Nearly two weeks ago, some eight Aid Workers were put to death; this has further made the life insecure in Afghanistan where peace and development are most desired. Such wanton killings only further destabilise the country and the region. Today Afghanistan is home to the US and NATO forces who landed here for some hidden agendas but the declared objectives were to bring peace and development to Afghanistan, that’s not only a distant dream but its totally ignored.      Full news...

  • August 23, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghanistan’s new war crimes museum punts on still-powerful warlords
    The Christian Science Monitor: He was a very tall man who wore outsized shoes and blue clothes. Sayed Husain taught history and prayed at the mosque, and for that he was thrown into jail in 1979. It wasn't until recently that Husaini's sister, Masooma, found those shoes among the remains of hundreds of people in a mass grave in northeastern Afghanistan, helping to close a dark chapter for the family.      Full news...

  • August 12, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    The real story behind Time’s Afghan woman cover: American complicity
    NiemanWatchdog: The repressive and misogynistic forces the picture depicts are the very ones that were bolstered by U.S. policy in the early 1980s, and again now. The head of Jobs for Afghans proposes an answer to 'warlordism' and its medieval attitude toward women. There has been much discussion, as well as misunderstanding, of the Time magazine cover photo of the Afghan woman who had her nose cut off by the Taliban.      Full news...

  • August 9, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    “Liberating” the Women of Afghanistan
    Dissident Voice: Time magazine must be experiencing a severe case of amnesia, judging by the cover of this week’s issue which asks, “What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan .” At best, this effort by Time is irresponsible slick journalism; at worst, it is one of the most blatant pieces of pro-war propaganda seen in years.      Full news...

  • August 8, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Between the Bomb and the Burqa
    t r u t h o u t : Her voice was thick with passion as she argued for ending violence against fellow Afghan women, but the men didn't listen. Instead they hurled insults at her; they called her a prostitute and a traitor to her religion. The stubborn men's insults were abusive and frustrating, but it had been worse for other women in her position. They were threatened and hunted down. Some of them were killed.      Full news...

  • August 5, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    The Afghan girl is back
    The Dawn Blog: While Sharbat Gul’s eyes powerfully transfixed the world from the cover of National Geographic in 1985, Aisha’s ordeal depicted on the cover of Time this week fixates our attention on where her nose would be. The metaphoric pain in the eyes has given way to the figurative – in this case, the disfigurative.      Full news...


  • June 5, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghan lawmaker calls for execution of Christian converts from Islam
    AFP: The Afghan government has suspended two Christian aid groups after a TV show reported they were proselytising, which is illegal in the devoutly Islamic country. Converting from Islam to another religion is punishable by death under Afghan law. The Afghan constitution is based on traditional sharia law, which strictly bans religious conversion. In parliament, Abdul Sattar Khawasi, a deputy of the lower house, called for Muslim converts to Christianity to be executed.      Full news...


  • May 14, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Victims of Afghan wars demand justice before peace
    AFP: As President Hamid Karzai prepares to host a peace conference later this month to discuss how to tackle the brutal Taliban insurgency, victims of the violence blighting Afghanistan complain their voice is not being heard. “I want peace in my country, but peace will only be possible if those who have brought death to our country are tried,” said Attayii, one of dozens of people who gathered at a mass grave on the outskirts of Kabul this week.      Full news...

  • May 9, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghanistan Grapples with “Honor Rape”
    The Media Line: The Muslim world is full of violent, graphic and alarming stories of “honor killings”, in which young woman are killed by male family members for dishonoring the family. “Honor rape”, in which the gang rape of a woman is used as a tool of social punishment, is spoken of less. Almost unheard of is an “honor killing” or “honor rape” of a man.      Full news...

  • May 6, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    The hypocrisy of child abuse in many Muslim countries
    The Guardian: Some Muslims are fond of condemning western morality – alcoholism, nudity, premarital sex and homosexuality often being cited as examples. But Muslims do not have a monopoly on morality. In the west, child marriages and sex with children are illegal. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many Muslim countries. I recently saw the documentary on the Dancing Boys of Afghanistan.      Full news...

  • April 18, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    “In My Father’s House They Gathered All the Women into One Room”
    In late 2001, after helping kick the Taliban out of northern Afghanistan, two militias allied with the United States raped and plundered their way through your villages. One was the ethnic Uzbek militia of General Abdul Rashid Dostum; the other was made up of ethnic Hazara followers of the warlord Muhammad Mohaqiq. They killed your men, slaughtered and stole your livestock, pillaged your homes, and violated your sisters, mothers, and daughters. Some of them took the time to explain why they had picked you as their victims: Because you are Pashtun, the ethnic group that made up most of the Taliban.      Full news...

  • March 26, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    The Bloody Hands of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
    UN Dispatch: During the first half of Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1990’s, Hekmatyar’s forces committed atrocities that elsewhere in the world are met with international arrest warrants and indictments for war crimes and crimes against humanity –not hints of future inclusion in government.      Full news...

  • March 25, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghan amnesty for militants draws UN condemnation
    Reuters: The United Nations urged Afghanistan on Thursday to repeal a law that grants a blanket pardon for perpetrators of war crimes and rights abuses, saying the law could hamper efforts to make peace. Afghan and international human rights groups expressed alarm earlier this month at the law, which appeared to have been enacted unannounced and gives immunity to all members of armed factions for acts committed before the Taliban’s ouster in 2001.      Full news...

  • March 16, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Who’s stealing Afghan cultural treasures?
    RT.com: Afghanistan’s unique location has made it home to the world's most complex civilizations that left a rich cultural heritage. But the war-torn country has now fallen victim to looters, stealing the nation’s artifacts. Ever since Afghanistan was invaded by Alexander the Great, nearly 2,500 years ago, the country has seen one foreign army after another. In recent times – the British, the Soviets – and now the Americans ...      Full news...

  • March 5, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    ‘Afghan women lawmakers hamstrung by warlords’
    AFP: Afghan women may hold a quarter of the seats in their country's parliament but many are mere mouthpieces for warlords, who continue to set the legislative agenda, an Afghan women's rights activist said. "Today we have 68 women in the parliament, 25 percent... We have a group of women high in quantity, but low in quality," Voice of Women director Suraya Pakzad told a meeting in the US Congress to mark International Women's Day.      Full news...

  • February 27, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghanistan worlords’ unwelcome return
    The Australian: Hekmatyar is being feted with offers that reportedly include ministries and governorships for his party, Hezb-e-Islami, in a future Afghan regime. The devils with whom Kabul and Washington must now deal are largely of America's own making, assisted by its long-time ally, Pakistan. During the US-backed jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, Hekmatyar led one of seven mujaheddin parties that were lavishly bankrolled by the CIA.      Full news...



< Previous 1 2 3 ... 5 6 7 ... 9 10 11 Next >