Afghan parliamentarians: "Women prisoners are raped in a Kabul prison"
BBC Persian (translated by RAWA), November 14, 2007
The delegation of Afghan parliament believe the situation in the Afghan prisons is worse then that is reflected in the Amnesty International report

Members of Afghanistan parliament accuse some officials of Pul-e-Charkhi prison in Kabul for raping women prisoners.

A delegation of Afghan parliamentarians who recently visited the prison say some women become pregnant after being raped.

[Picture left: The number of children staying with their mothers in Afghan prisons is extremely high, almost equal to the number of their mothers, according to UNODC. (IRIN Photo)]

The number of children staying with their mothers in Afghan prisons is extremely high, almost equal to the number of their mothers, according to UNODC. (IRIN Photo)
MPs say they are concerned about the conditions of Afghanistan's prisons and are afraid such violations are going on in prisons in the other provinces.

These concerns are stated a day after the Amnesty International report warned about possible abusing of prisoners in Afghanistan.

The findings of parliament delegation suggest that prison officials first give medicines to prisoners to stupefy them and then sexually assault them.

Fouzia Kofi, one of the MPs who meet these victims in the prison, says in some cases victims have been forcibly raped.

Ms. Kofi says: "they (prisoners) say when we are ill and ask for medicines, they gave the medicines to make them unconscious, and then they are sexually abused. In some cases they are forcibly taken to the offices of prison officials, few women have got pregnant."

She says, fearing Afghan traditions and prison officials have made some victims silent, so it is difficult to find out a statistic about the number of abuses.

She says: "the numbers of women who are ready to talk about these issues are few and unfortunately they don’t have the gut to expose the truth. Because when we (the fact-finding delegation) leave the pri! son, they become defenseless."

The Amnesty International had already warned about torture of prisons in Afghanistan, but the delegation of Afghan parliament believe the situation in the Afghan prisons is worse then what is reflected in the AI report.

RAWA Appeal
Monday, 4 June, 2007

Stop Human Catastrophe: Help Afghan Refugees!

Another human tragedy is unfolding just over the border with Iran and threatening Afghanistan. During the past three weeks the fundamentalist Islamic regime of Iran has forcefully deported over 85 000 Afghan refugees back to Afghanistan. Reports tell of the brutal treatment of Afghan refugees by the Iranian police and of women and children being separated from their adult male family members and taken away to Afghanistan. The flood of refugees surged into the hot deserts of Nimroz and Farah with no water, no food and no shelter - a horrific situation. Hundreds of small children who have been separated from their parents can be seen roaming, dazed and crying out for their families.
"My father and mother had been invited out to a party; Iranian police came to our house and deported us in the direction of Nimroz."
These are the sad words of Noorbashee, 9, who claims she has been expelled from Iran along with her 3 year old sister. Now these two small girls are living in great hardship in a camp in the frontier region of Nimroz Province that offers nothing except for the burning desert and whirling sand storms.

"They threw me and my little sister into a truck, where there were other people too, and we were very frightened and they took us to a camp in Zabul and there the Iranians were beating everybody and an old man accepted us as his children and the Iranians beat this old man as well," said Noorbashee. Pajhwok Afghan News, May 17, 2007

"During my 48-hour detention I was given no food," said a young Afghan deportee who accused the Iranian police of having robbed him. Another deported man, showing his blood-stained shirt, said, "They [the Iranian security forces] kept on punching and kicking me in the face and head while I was still bleeding." (IRIN News, April 30, 2007)

Fazila 5, who has been forced out of the Iranshahr Province of Iran, says that another expelled family is looking after her in Nimroz camp. With tears in her eyes Fazila said, "I don't have any news of my father and mother and I don't know anybody here."

Rahima, 3, who has also been forced out of the Zabul Province of Iran, is being cared for by another family. Like Fazila, she knows no-one here. Rahima, with the plaintive language of a small child, says, "I want my mummy and my daddy." (Pajhwok Afghan News, May 17, 2007)

RAWA appeals to all philanthropic, charitable people to come forward and prevent another human catastrophe from happening in Afghanistan. You can respond to this inhumane act on the part of the fundamentalist Islamic and fascist regime in Iran by showing your solidarity with Afghan refugees and raising funds for them.

You can send your donation to RAWA by any one of the following methods of payment:

Online Credit Card Donations: Please click here http://www.afghanwomensmission.org/help_us/donate.php and make your payment at EMERGENCY RELIEF section.

Please make check or money order payable to IHC/Afghan Women's Mission and mail it to:

Afghan Women's Mission
2460 North Lake Ave. PMB 207
Altadena, CA 91001
USA

Bank wire transfers: To do a wire transfer to the Afghan Women's Mission, pease call AWM's office at (626) 676-7884 to make arrangements.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Tuesday, 29 May, 2007
Afghanistan: Reinstate MP Suspended for 'Insult'
Censure of Malalai Joya Sets Back Democracy and Rights
Human Rights Watch, May 23, 2007

Malalai Joya, in a press conference in Kabul on May 21, 2007 vows to continue her fight against warlords. (AP photo)

Malalai Joya, in a press conference in Kabul on May 21, 2007 vows to continue her fight against warlords. (AP photo)
New York The Afghan parliament should immediately reinstate Malalai Joya, a member suspended for criticizing colleagues, and revise parliamentary procedures that restrict freedom of speech, Human Rights Watch said today.

On May 21, 2007, the Lower House of the Afghan parliament voted to suspend Joya for comments she made during a television interview the previous day. It is unclear whether Joya's suspension will run until the current parliamentary session ends in several weeks or whether she will be suspended for the remainder of her term in office, which ends in 2009. In addition to her suspension from parliament, several legislators have said that Joya could be sued for contempt in a court of law.

"Malalai Joya is a staunch defender of human rights and a powerful voice for Afghan women, and she shouldn't have been suspended from parliament," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Joya's comments don't warrant the punishment she received and they certainly don't warrant court proceedings."

Joya had criticized the parliament for failing to accomplish enough for the Afghan people, saying, "A stable or a zoo is better [than the legislature], at least there you have a donkey that carries a load and a cow that provides milk. This parliament is worse than a stable or a zoo."

On May 22, a recorded version of Joya's interview was shown during a session of parliament. Afterward, a majority of her colleagues found her guilty of violating article 70 of the Afghan legislature's rules of procedure, which forbids lawmakers from criticizing one another. Joya's specific crime was "insulting the institution of parliament."

Human Rights Watch noted that members of parliament have regularly criticized each other, but no one else has been suspended.

"The article banning criticism of parliament is an unreasonable rule that violates the principle of free speech enshrined in international law and valued around the world," said Adams. "The Afghan parliament should be setting an example by promoting and protecting free expression, not by stamping it out."

Human Rights Watch urged the Afghan parliament to take steps to revise article 70 and ensure that elected representatives can speak freely without fear of suspension or lawsuits.

Joya, 28, is the youngest member of the Afghan legislature. As a 19-year-old refugee in Pakistan, she taught literacy courses to other Afghan women. During the Taliban years, she ran an orphanage and health clinic in Afghanistan. In 2003, she gained international attention for speaking out publicly against warlords involved in drafting the Afghan Constitution. Two years later, she was the top vote-getter from Farah province in Afghanistan's parliamentary elections, and was easily elected to the lower house of the legislature.

Since her election, Joya has continued to be an outspoken defender and promoter of the rights of Afghan women and children. She has also continued to publicly call for accountability for war crimes, even those perpetrated by fellow parliamentarians.

Joya has survived four assassination attempts, travels with armed guards and reportedly never spends two nights in the same place.

"Joya is an inspiring example of courage," said Adams. "Afghanistan's international friends should not hesitate to speak out in her defense."
www.MalalaiJoya.com

Afghan assembly grants immunity for war crimes
Reuters via Khaleej Times, February 1, 2007
UNAMA: "No one has the right to forgive those responsible for human rights violations other than the victims themselves"

KABUL - Afghanistan's parliament has granted immunity to all Afghans involved in the country's 25 years of conflict, lawmakers said on Thursday, despite calls by human rights groups for war crimes trials.

The decision passed on Wednesday in the lower house, Wolesi Jirga, would also cover fugitive Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who now heads his own militant group, critics and supporters of the move said.

Rights groups have strongly pressed the government to punish those guilty of abuses, including some members of parliament and senior government officials, saying justice was vital for peace.

But the national assembly said its motion would help reconciliation in a nation shattered by years of war and civil strife that have left almost no family untouched by tragedy.

"In order to bring reconciliation among various st! rata in the society, all those political and belligerent sides who were involved one way or the other during the 2-"decades of war will not be prosecuted legally and judicially," the motion passed by the assembly says.

"No one has the right to forgive those responsible for human rights violations other than the victims themselves.... For any process of national reconciliation to succeed the suffering of victims must be acknowledged and impunity tackled."
"International experience shows that truth is vital to reconciliation. As a consequence, the search for truth and the rights of victims are central elements of Afghanistan’s Action Plan on Peace, Reconciliation, and Justice."
UNAMA, Feb.1, 2007

The United Nations in Kabul objected immediately.

"For any process of national reconciliation to succeed, the suffering of victims must be ac! knowledged and impunity tackled," it said in a statement.

"No one has the right to forgive those responsible for human rights violations other than the victims themselves."
The Wolesi Jirga elected in late 2005 includes former senior communist officials, ex-Mujahideen (holy warrior) leaders who fought the Soviets and some former Taleban.

Dozens are accused of human rights abuses.

Several lawmakers said President Hamid Karzai, who has led Afghanistan since the Taleban was ousted in 2001, knew of the assembly's move in advance.

Analysts believe the hanging of Saddam Hussein may have spurred powerful Afghan politicians into acting against similar trials at home. "Afghans will see this as a sign that their parliament is more concerned with protecting its own members than the people," said Sam Zarifi of Human Rights Watch.
But many of those facing the most serious accusations, such as Abdul Rasul Sayaaf, are influential members of parliament.
The Guardian, Feb.1, 2007

"In a way, this provides immunity for all," Shukria Barakzai, a leading woman activist MP, told Reuters. She was among a small group of delegates who left the session in protest.

Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, a former Mujahideen leader who was among the key legislators behind the amnesty, said it was in line with Karzai's efforts to push national reconciliation.

He also believed the immunity would cover Omar and Hekmatyar.

"This is a law and the law will be implemented on all individuals equally," he told Reuters.

The decision was approved days after Karzai again indicated he could consider talks with Taleban leaders to end the bloodshed after the country's most violent year since the Taleban's ouster.

One of Karzai's advisers on Wednesday clarified talks would not be held with the Taleban as a political, ideological or military group.

Thursday, 21 December, 2006
Keeping the Light of Hope Alive
RAWA’s Orphanage Program
"Sponsoring these children and doing what I can to make the orphanages even better places for them gives me a great deal of pleasure...We must try to remain hopeful about change…"
Doffie, USA, began as a sponsor of a single child and has gradually built an extended family with her 8 sponsored children and new library project
While the news coming out of Afghanistan is filled with despair and anguish, we are working with our international partners to create an oasis of hope for our people!

With the support of CharityHelp International (CHI) and international donors, we are helping hundreds of children rebuild their lives. If you would like to learn more about the lives of the children in the RAWA orphanages click here

Donors and supporters just like Doffie are currently supporting three orphanages and more than 140 children through the child sponsorship program. View photos of the newest orphanage here.

"Supporting these children is not only a gift to them as individuals; it is a gift to the world's future. Against staggering odds, they have made it this far, surviving as lights of hope through the darkest of nights. It is up to us to help them continue to shine." - Jennifer A. Hartley, CHI Board Member

As a sponsor, you can communicate with your child by sharing emails and photographs. You will also get regular updates from CHI and RAWA with pictures and slideshows. View a slideshow of child-sponsor communications here

Your sponsorship will help educate a child in an atmosphere of compassion, tolerance and equal rights. These education policies are a vital foundation for building a new Afghanistan.

Join us in keeping the light of hope burning through the darkest of nights! For less than a dollar a day, you can provide on-going support to complement our child sponsorship program. View our sponsorship options here.

Sunday, 10 December, 2006
RAWA communiqué on Universal Human Rights Day, Dec.10, 2006
Afghanistan the Bloodiest Field for Slaughtering Human Rights
Five years ago, America and their allies attacked Afghanistan in the name of bringing "Human Rights", "Democracy", and "Freedom" to the war-torn country. The Taliban regime fell and Hamid Karzai's puppet regime, which included the world-known Northern Alliance criminals or as UN envoy Mahmoud Mestri said, "the bandit gangs", took over in the name of a fake democracy. However, today, the deceitful policies of Mr. Karzai and his Western guardians have brought Afghanistan to a very critical situation in which disaster is a ticking time bomb that can explode any minute. Treason and mockery have efficiently been used under the name of "democracy" and "freedom" in these five years and the human rights situation in Afghanistan is a product of the painful deception of the warlord led government.

Northern Alliance criminals, backed by the US have their own local and barbaric governments. Just the increasing amount of women who commit suicides by burning themselves can be the best example of a human rights violation in Afghanistan. According to UNICEF, 65% of 50000 widows in Kabul think that committing suicide is the only option they have. Northern Alliance crooks raped an 11 year old girl, Sanuber, and traded her with a dog. In Badakhshan a young woman was gang-raped by 13 Jehadies in front of her children, and one of the rapists urinated in the mouth of her children who were continuously crying. In Paghman, a suburb of Kabul, a criminal leader Rasol Sayyaf, who was the mentor and godfather of Khalid Shikh Mohammad, the mastermind of 9/11 attacks, plunders our peoples' territory and tortures his oppositions at his private prison. Despite many protest rallies of unfortunate people of Paghman in front of the Parliament House, no one hear their painful voice and the ! so-called police forces headed by infamous criminal warlords like Zahir Aghbar and Amanullah Guzar attack the protester and kill 2 of them. These are all just some examples of thousands crimes that are being carried out by fundamentalists of the Northern Alliance evil men who have high positions in executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of the US-imposed government and some unprincipled intellectuals are dancing to their tune.

Establishment of state-run institutions such as the Independent Human Rights Commission and Ministry for Women Affairs are just a show-off to throw dust in the eye of our people and world community and to conceal the human rights catastrophe. Although these symbolic institutes spend a lot of money, they have never addressed the core issues regarding human rights in Afghanistan, which is the atrocities carried out by the Northern Alliance criminals. For instance, a woman named Zofanoon Natiq, the head of Women Affaires Ministry branch in Badakhshan Province in an interview with Pajhwak News Agency entirely refused the gang-rape saying "no such incident had been occurred in Badakhshan" while the Police chief in the same province contradicted her and said a warlord from the fundamentalist Jamiat-e-Islami party, named Mujtaba committed the crime. Another woman, Fahima Kakar, the head of Women department in Kunduz, didn't want to displeasure warlords by only saying, "I think it! is not proper to behead a lady, in my view and in Islam it is not good to kill someone" regarding the crime in which a woman was beheaded and killed while her hands were tightened on her back. All of the women in official posts are selected among such showpiece women who compromise with the fundamentalists and keep silence against their crimes.

The disgraceful defeat and embarrassing situation in the War in Iraq left no option for the US, except to illustrate Afghanistan as a success whether it results in pain and suffering for the Afghan people. The disagreement among NATO members and the stand of some member sates against the will of the US made the situation harder for the White House. Therefore, America tries to keep a fragile, temporary stability in Afghanistan in order to promote a sense of accomplishment in producing a "democratic" Afghanistan all around the world, a "B52 democracy" in expanse to treason against majority of Afghan people.

Compromising with Gulbuddin Islamic Party and Taliban and plans for Tribal Jirgas are treacherous games to finalize the Jehadies-Taliban-Gulbuddin-Khalqi-Parchami circle of evil. Tribal Jirgas will have no better fate then the Loya Jirga and Parliament to deceive our bereaved people. First the US divided the Taliban criminals into "moderate" and "non-moderate" fractions. In the first stage Taliban criminal leaders such as Mullah Rocketi, Arsela Rahmani, Mullah Khaksar, Wakil Ahmad Motawakil, Qalamaddin etc. were stamped as being "moderate Taliban" and allowed to make their ways into the Parliament. Now, two criminal gangster leaders, Gulbuddin and Mullah Omer, were invited to join the government. In this case, only Al- Qaida remained to be invited to join the rotten Afghan Government.

Although Gulbuddin Party and Taliban have many representatives in the government branches and parliament, the last compromise calls for criminal and blood stained leaders illustrates that America never wants peace and stability in Afghanistan. The US government sacrifices our people for its political and economical interests by establishing a government full of traitors, criminals and drug-lords. It does not matter who rules in Kabul, the US wants just a poppet regime. An American military presence in Afghanistan has no benefit for our people. In addition, thousands of civilians lost their lives because of radioactive and cluster bombs and "friendly fires". This fact is obviously a disgrace for those who strongly defense American military presence in Afghanistan.

Since the Northern Alliance criminals were installed into power, RAWA has been saying that it is impossible to bring peace, human rights, and stability with a gang of criminals in power. Today even the western media points out the jehadi warlords as a main problem in destabilizing Afghanistan which proves RAWA's analyzes. However, the fundamentalist Karzai's government, in order to cover up its own irresponsibility, corruption, and weaknesses, terms Pakistan's interference and support to the Taliban as the only main issue in Afghanistan and pretend that if this interference is stopped Afghanistan will become a heaven on the earth! Karzai's government raise hue and cry on Pakistani statement about the need of "coalition government" but everyone knows that a coalition government with all criminals such as Taliban, Jehadi, Gullbudin's and other is already in place.

Murderers such as Sayyaf, Rabbani, Qannoni, Fahim, Mujadadi, Massoud, Dostom, Mahaqiq, Khalili, Ismail, and others who were Pakistan and Iran's loyal agents and servants are trying to deceive our people by acting as if they are anti Pakistan, however, they can never dissolve the shameful marks of being agents of Pakistan and others. Moreover, Pakistan and Iran also should first of all apologize from our oppressed people for their treacherous role in empowering and supporting Afghan brutal fundamentalist bands. Although it is obvious that the Taliban are supported by some Pakistani sources, as Iran supports her own spies such as Khalili, Mohaqiq, Kazimi, Bahwi, Islael Khan and others, the core issue in Afghanistan is not Pakistani interference inside Afghanistan. The biggest factor in destabilizing Afghanistan is inside Afghanistan. As long as the main issue inside has not been solved, solving the external issues cannot be effective.

The biggest factor that strengthens the Taliban is the hatred and disgust that our people have against the Jehadi mafia in the system. When people have no security, when they see lawlessness and how the criminals embezzle millions of dollars from international aids, they are indifferent about the raise of the Taliban. Haji Nek Mohammad who had lost his beloveds in a NATO's air strike in Kandahar said, "I prefer to join the Taliban forces because Taliban have so far killed only 2 people in my village while the collation forces killed 63 people in a single day."

Our people know that there is no difference between Taliban and Jehadi warlords. They both are fundamentalist medieval forces that were created by foreigners and they will join forces against our people in any possible time. The NA hooligan leader Rabbani in his recent interview by saying that he will not fight against Taliban, confirms this fact.

Amusingly, there are some right and leftists groups outside of Afghanistan who look at the Taliban as an "anti-imperialist" force and defend them. They satirize themselves by such funny remarks and prove that they are completely ignorant of barbaric nature of the Taliban. If they had experienced a day of humiliation under the Taliban rule, they would have never made such hurting jokes with our people.

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) strongly supports the anti-war movement which grows day by day all around the world and becomes a strong force against the US and her Allies war-mongering policies.

Despite being on the top of the fundamentalists' black list, we would like to assure our people that RAWA, as before, will never give up its struggle against Jehadi, Talibi, Khalqi, and Parchami murderers and will carry on its uncompromising fight with full determination to break the mask of fundamentalists' demagogy.

We would like to declare to all freedom-loving, anti-invaders, and anti-fundamentalist individuals and groups that as long as we don't form a united movement against the fundamentalists and their foreign masters, we would not be in a position to break the chain of oppression and tyranny. We announced in the first day of the US invasion that there is not one example in history where a foreign force brings freedom to another nation, only people of Afghanistan themselves can gain these values.

Fourteen years have passed from the gloomy day of 28th April 1992, but our nation is being caught tighter day by day around the ankles of those who caused the pain, mourning and destruction in our land. Traitors, country-betrayers, and dark minds are in control of our nation's fate and our country is sunk in calamities. Mr. Karzai and his foreign guardians, who have invested in fundamentalists for many years, today have given key posts in the executive, legislation and judiciary branches of government, to the most infamous and bloody elements of the Northern Alliance and other savage bands. With the passage of time, the ring of these traitors is increasing. The evil men who caused the 28th April tragedy, instead of being sued, have so much authority in the country that through the parliament they shamelessly announce this infelicitous day as a public holiday. In this manner they ridicule the people, the majority of who, according to a survey of national and international hu! man rights defending organizations, want the prosecution and punishment of these national traitors.

Without the end of the fundamentalists rule, observance of human rights is just a dream!

Hold the struggle flag of freedom, democracy, and social justice!

With people against fundamentalism; or with fundamentalist against people; there is not a third option!
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
December 10, 2006

November 29, 2006
Warlords gang-rape a woman in Badakhshan
Husband of the victim: "my children were crying one of them peed in their mouth"
Brig. Sayed Habib Saeedkhili: "Drug-trafficker Mujtaba and his 11 men raped the woman and fled"
RAWA reporter
A local commander and his 11 men gang-rape a 22-year-old woman in Shahre Buzurg district of the northeastern Badakhshan province on Nov.28.

The crime took place in the Shah Dasht village, by a local warlord called Mujtaba who belongs to Jamiat-e-Islami Afghanistan led by Burhanuddin Rabbani (now member of the parliament).

People of the village told journalists that they have complained a number of times about brutalities and lawlessness in their village by warlords but police and local officials take no action because these warlords are so powerful and backed by Burhanuddin Rabbani, who himself is based in Badakhshan.

Qari Jehangir, husband of the victim, says the armed men raped his wife and when his 2 children were crying one of them peed in their mouth. The victim had been threatened to death by the commander not to complain.

Brig. Sayed Habib Saeedkhili, the border police chief in Badakhshan confirmed the crime and told to the media that commander Mujtaba and his men are famous drug traffickers who succeeded to flee but his brother, Anayat, has been arrested.

According to Pajhwok Afghan News (Nov.29, 2006): "Zofanoon Natiq, director of the Women Affairs Department of Badakhshan, showed unawareness about the incident. She said no such incident had been occurred in Badakhshan. But the head of the Independent Human Rights Commission at northeast zone, said: 'This is a crime, and will also stimulate anger of the people.' He said weakness of the local authorities was the main reason of repeating such cases in the region."

Crimes against women are on raise across Afghanistan but especially in the Northern Province of Badakhshan which is the stronghold of Jamiat-e-Islami Afghanistan which has its armed militia and key government posts in the area.

In April 2005, Amina, a 29 year-old woman was publicly stoned to death on the basis of a district court's decision in this province.

Wednesday, 29 November 2006
Post-Taliban Kabul blossoms for the rich
"The Taliban time was very bad and now it is very bad for the poor. Where is the difference?"
By Kathy Gannon, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan
Eight-year-old Sajjad's kite struggles upward. It's nothing grand -- a plastic bag salvaged from a heap of garbage and fashioned into a diamond shape.

But it's a symbol of change in Kabul, five years after the Afghan capital was freed from a Taliban regime that believed activities such as kite-flying would distract youngsters from studying the Islamic holy book, the Quran.
Crime and barbarism in Shirpur by Afghan ministers and high authorities

The U.S.-led war and the Western-friendly government that followed eliminated that rule and a host of others. Girls have returned to school. Public beheadings and amputations as punishment for crimes came to an end.

The times have changed. But in Kabul today the question often asked is: How much and for whom?

Sajjad (he says he has no last name) lives in a neighborhood called Shirpur, a significant symbol of what has changed since U.S. and British bombs drove the Taliban from the city on the night of Nov. 12-13, 2001.

Part of it has been demolished and its inhabitants evicted to make way for a "new Afghanistan" of palatial homes -- scores of four- and five-story mansions boasting gold-painted marble columns and floor-to-ceiling windows flanking grand wooden doors.

The owners are the successors to the Taliban -- movers and shakers who in 2003 used their new power to seize and clear the land. About 250 of Sajjad's neighbors were tossed from their homes.

Miloon Kothari, the UN's housing representative, complained and Afghan President Hamid Karzai promised to investigate, but nothing has come of it.

Now, in the waning days of October 2006, Sajjad runs past a half dozen goats and a cow feasting on rotting garbage to get his flimsy kite airborne. He lives with seven brothers and four sisters in a single-story house of dried mud, straw and pebbles. He wears cracked plastic sandals and a torn brown shirt with only three buttons remaining.

One of his neighbors, Aziz Mohammed, a potbellied man with a speckled beard, stands ankle deep in the mud he is using to winterize his home of 25 years.

Mohammed says he has been told that his and his neighbors' houses will be flattened soon to make way for more mansions.

The owners of these mansions "are commanders, ministers. It makes me angry. These people use everything that isn't theirs and they ruin the houses of the poor people to build their homes," said Mohammed. "The Taliban were no good, they were just stupid people. But in this new life there is no job, nothing."

The man who ordered the first homes razed in 2003 was Kabul Police Chief Abdul Bassir Salangi. He has two houses in the ostentatious subdivision. Salangi has since been appointed police chief of eastern Nangarhar province and could not be reached for comment.

The big question, said Najibullah Siddique, director of the Afghan charity Afghans for Tomorrow, is why the billions of dollars in foreign aid that has poured into Afghanistan isn't making a difference. "Why doesn't the government help the poor? Why do the government people and commanders build big mansions and poor people still live in bad conditions?"
Sherpur Today: Gap between rich and poor in Kabul

Gul Haider, a commander of the Northern Alliance that swept into Kabul after the Taliban's collapse, makes no apology for owning a mansion in Shirpur.

"This is the new Afghanistan. We are just beginning. All these houses are from the private pockets of Afghans and I hope one day that all of Afghanistan will be beautiful like Shirpur," he said in an interview.

"We are praying for the poor people to have houses like us," he said. "But everything belongs to God. God knows better who should be given property and who shouldn't. God gave us this property and we built our houses. We are praying that God will look more favorably on the poor."

In the months following the Taliban's collapse there were signs of a business renaissance. Barbershops, beauty salons and music stores reopened. Afghan exiles returned to start businesses.

But many have since been driven out by runaway corruption, lawlessness and the violence perpetrated by a resurgent Taliban, highlighted by a string of recent suicide bombings in Kabul.

Post-2001 Afghanistan has an elected parliament but it is criticized for its inclusion of warlords, commanders and mujahedeen leaders.

Last May, an outspoken lawmaker, Malalai Joya, attacked the warlords and rebel commanders in the chamber for their role in the civil conflict that destroyed Kabul and killed 50,000 civilians when they were in power between 1992 and 1996, a period of anarchy that gave rise to the Taliban. The response from the floor was threats of rape and death.

A recent report by Womankind Worldwide, a British-based advocacy group, challenges the notion that Afghan women are better off now.

It said the scenes in 2001 of women throwing off their all-covering robes were misleading, and that except for a small elite in Kabul, women still have to cover their entire bodies.

It said up to 80 percent of all Afghan marriages are forced, 57 percent of girls are married off before age 16, some as young as 6: "and the number of women setting fire to themselves because they cannot bear their lives is rising dramatically."

While girls are back at school, the program is far short of where it should be, says Siddique.

"Girls education is like a car," he said. "During the Taliban there was no gas and the car didn't work. Now we are putting in gas and it is running but it isn't because of this government. Any government after the Taliban would have had girls education. But what guarantees do we have? Corruption in the government has delayed schools being built."

Meanwhile, schools are being destroyed, some by the Taliban but as many by tribal feuds, village animosities, and anger at the government for perceived injustices and corrupt practices, he said.

Kabul traffic is a nightmare, a huge contrast from the Taliban era, when only bicycles, yellow taxis and Taliban pickup trucks were running. Luxury SUVs, many driven by the 2,000 employees of the UN and aid agencies, remind the desperately poor how they have been left behind.

Mohammed Habib, an out-of-work laborer, carried his 1-year-old son Mujtaba as he walked the streets begging for food. He said the infusion of foreign aid hasn't changed his life.

"Money comes to help the poor people but the commanders and the government people take it," he said. With the Taliban gone "we thought our future will be better, but every day we are poorer."

Habib might not have noticed, but the culinary landscape of Kabul has changed.

In Taliban times, eating out meant roadside food stalls and rice and kebab restaurants. Now there are restaurants offering French, Italian, Lebanese, German, and Indian cuisine -- but at prices out of the reach of most Afghans.

Alcohol, banned by the Taliban and still offensive to most Afghans, is served, although more discreetly now than in the first post-Taliban years. The government is cracking down by banning the sale of booze at the duty-free stores frequented by foreigners.
" Parliament is just a showpiece for the West," complains Malalai Joya, one of the female MPs. "Women do not have liberation at all. People in power, whether in government, parliament or governors, are warlords and jihadis who are no different in their outlook from Taliban."
The Sunday Times, November 5, 2006

Visitors can spend up to $500 a night to stay in the new Landmark Suites hotel, which has a shopping mall and the country's first escalator.

Afghans flocked to the complex and its glass-enclosed shops when it opened, though many couldn't afford the prices.

Hajji Sadiqullah says he is two months behind on the monthly rent of $1,500 for his cosmetics and hair supplies store. "Another month like this and I will die," he said.

In contrast to the Landmark Suites, the Allauddin Orphanage with its hundreds of poor children has a new coat of paint, a few computers, a ration of food from the government and electricity most of the day. But in winter heat still comes from wood stoves, one for each room where nine or more children sleep. And elsewhere in Kabul there is electricity for barely three hours on most days.

Corruption is so rampant that it can take a $50 bribe just to get the tax collector to register payment of your taxes.

On a street corner, a traffic policeman sidles up to a car window, palm out for money. On a small side street, five women in burqas hold out their babies to passing cars, begging food.

Habib, the laborer, looks at the new mansions in Shirpur and sees injustice.

"These people are very bad people. That money was for us and they took it," he said. "The Taliban time was very bad and now it is very bad for the poor. Where is the difference?"
Amir Shah, an Associated Press correspondent in Kabul, contributed to this report.

Tuesday, 14 November, 2006
Meena among 60 Asian Heroes of Time Magazine
A Hero of Our TIME — M E E N A
She fought—and died at the age of 30 for the rights of Afghan women
By Aryn Baker
Time Magazine (Nov.13, 2006): “In this special anniversary issue, we pay tribute to the remarkable men and women who have shaped these times.”

Meena called the women of Afghanistan sleeping lions, pledging that one day they would awake and roar. In 1977, at the age of 20, she launched the country's first movement for women's rights, calling her group the Revolutionary Association for the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). Its goals: the restoration of democracy, equality for men and women, social justice, and the separation of religion from the affairs of the state. But in a country mired in tradition and occupied by the Soviet Union, Meena's beliefs were threatening enough to get her assassinated. Ten years after founding RAWA, she was kidnapped and killed; many Afghans held agents of the local communist intelligence agency responsible.

Although she was only 30 when she died, Meena had already planted the seeds of an Afghan women's rights movement based on the power of knowledge. She believed that if women were able to read and write, that if they could communicate and learn about the world, they would discover their own strength and could make a difference in their own society. After the Soviet invasion in 1979 she established schools and orphanages for refugees pouring over the border into Pakistan. Those schools offered opportunities never available previously to young Afghan women.

“Meena didn't just give me an education; she taught me that I had the right to live a better life,” says Sahar Saba, an early student at RAWA's first school in Quetta.

Today, for the first time in Afghan history, women have campaigned for, and won, seats in the national parliament. One of these women is Gulhar Jalal, a childhood friend of Meena's and an illiterate widow who now represents the province of Kunar.

“I ran,” she says: “because this was Meena's dream.”
Source
http://www.time.com/time/asia/2006/heroes/in_meena.html

November 5, 2006
Sanobar, 11-years-old girl is abducted and raped by warlords
RAWA report
Malom Zafar Shah, district chief and powerful warlord Mehmood, both from “Northern Alliance”, accused of crime
Gulsha, the suffering mother of Sanobar accuses Malom Zafar (district chief) and Commander Mehmood, a local warlord, to be linked with the crime.
Movie Clip of Gulsha | More photos
Sanobar, 11-years-old daughter of Gulsha, an Afghan widow, has been abducted, raped and then exchanged with a dog by warlords in Aliabad district of Kondoz province in North of Afghanistan.

The suffering mother, while crying, says: "a month ago at 11 o'clock of night armed men entered my house and after beating and threatening me by gun, abducted my only daughter."

She accused the district chief Malom Zafar Shah and a powerful warlord Commander Mehmood to be responsible for this crime.

Gulsha says later it was found that her daughter has been raped and exchanged with a dog and a sum of money to another person but her whereabouts are still unknown.

While crying she told journalists: "I approached human rights office and police but none of them could help to find my daughter. The district chief himself has four daughters but he sold my daughters to others. With many difficulties and problems I grown up 2 daughters, one was previously sold [by him] to a Kandahari man and taken to Pakistan and another was exchanged with a dog. Please bring them to justice." (Movie Clip)

Both Malom Zafar Shah and warlord Mehmood are from the "Northern Alliance" and members of Jamiat-e Islami Afghanistan led by Burhanuddin Rabbani (currently member of the Parliament). They have a long record of such crimes and brutalities against people of Kondoz. Malom Zafar has been appointed as district chief directly by Qasim Fahim the former defense minister and vice President and now member of Senate.

In an interview with Ariana TV, Malom Zafar rejected all charges against himself and Commander Mehmmod telling "no Jehadi brother is involved in such crimes."

Mohammad Zahir Zafari, chief of the human rights office in Kondoz says, they have tried since a month to find the child but police is also unable to do anything as powerful people have link to the crime. He also exposed that his office was threatened a number of times to stop following of the case.

Such crimes happen on daily bases in Kundoz and other parts of Afghanistan where warlords have established jungle law and have all the key positions in their possession.

Unfortunately only few of such cases find its way to the media, most journalists are too afraid to report it as it can have dangerous consequences for them.

October 25, 2006
90 civilians perish in NATO air strike: Residents
ISAF spokesman in Kandahar Morall has confirmed killing of four civilians in the bombing
Javid Hamim, Ahmad Farzan — Pajhwok Afghan News,
Haji Nik Mohammad from Panjwaye village of Qandadahar told journalists on October 26, 2006: "I prefer to join the Taliban forces because Taliban have so far killed only 2 people in my village while the collations forces killed 63 people in a single day. Now you tell me who is my real enemy, the Taliban or the foreign troops?"
more photos

KABUL, Oct 25 (Pajhwok Afghan News): About 90 civilians were killed in a NATO air strike in Panjwaye district of the southern Kandahar province, residents said on Wednesday. However, NATO-led ISAF forces claim they had killed 38 Taliban fighters in the bombing.

Residents of Panjwaye also said civilians had suffered great casualties in Tuesday‘s clash and bombardment. Ahmadullah, resident of Zangawad village, told Pajhwok Afghan News on Wednesday that 50 houses of civilians were hit in the bombing.

He said they had retrieved 30 dead bodies from the rubble and some corpses were still entangled there. He said about 90 civilians were killed in the Tuesday air strikes. Per Agha, who has shifted injured to Kandahar Civil Hospital, told this news agency one woman member of his family was killed and three others were wounded. He said he had shifted the injured members to hospital for treatment.

Agha said some members of his family were missing that were perhaps buried in the debris. Another attendant Dad Mohammad said NATO forces heavily bombarded Laknai village of Zangawad area of the Panjwaye district. He also said 90 civilians were killed in this air strike.

A Dr at Kandahar Civil Hospital, requesting anonymity, told this news agency they had received seven wounded including women and children so far. He said ambulances were sent into the area and the number of wounded might increase. NATO forces claimed they had killed 38 Taliban fighters in the attack.

"In two separate engagements we killed 38 insurgents yesterday through very careful targeting against specific groups of insurgents trying to infiltrate back into Zhari and Panjwayi," a spokesman for the NATO force told Pajhwok Afghan News.

The Taliban and other anti-government groups in Afghanistan have gained public support due to the Afghan government's failure to provide essential security and development, and have used the presence of warlords in the government to discredit President Karzai's administration and its international backers.

HRW, Sep. 27, 2006
"We had eyes on them and we knew what they were up to and took action," International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman Major Luke Knittig said on Wednesday. The area, which is about 35 kilometres (19 miles) west of Kandahar city, was the focus of nearly two weeks of intense fighting last month as part of Operation Medusa, ISAF's largest anti-Taliban offensive.

NATO said afterwards that its soldiers and the Afghan troops involved in the operation had handed the Taliban their heaviest defeat since the hardliners were driven from power in late 2001. ISAF says it is now rebuilding the war damage and setting in place reconstruction projects designed to persuade locals to shun the Taliban.

"We are continuing projects and things that are already putting in place economic development on the ground in follow up to Operation Medusa and insurgents continue to attempt to infiltrate back," Knittig said. "We are trying to deal with that infiltration." Regarding the civilians casualties, Knitting said they had also received such reports and had started investigation in this regard.

However, NATO-led ISAF spokesman in Kandahar Morall has confirmed killing of four civilians in the bombing. Afghan officials have yet to comment about the civilians casualties. Pajhwok contacted the ministry of interior several times but every time it received the reply that the spokesman was “busy in a meeting”. Likewise, Taliban have yet to comment on the incident.

KABUL, Oct 26 (Pajhwok Afghan News)
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has expressed concern on civilians casualties in NATO air strikes in Nangawat village of Pajnwaye district in the southern Kandahar province.

A press statement from UNAMA stated the United Nations had always made clear that the safety and welfare of civilians must always come first and any civilian casualties were unacceptable, without exception. According to residents about 90 civilians were killed in NATO air strike in Panjwaye district of the southern Kandahar province. However, NATO-led ISAF forces claim they had killed 38 Taliban fighters in the bombing.

It was clearly in the interests of everyone that the facts be established regarding these events and it was imperative that a thorough investigation was carried out, the statement added.

At this difficult time, the thoughts of the entire United Nations family in Afghanistan were with those who have suffered as a result of this tragedy, the release added.

Afghan women call for ousting war criminals
April 29, 2006
By Our Reporter
ISLAMABAD, April 28: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (Rawa) staged a protest rally here on Friday marking the April 28, 1992, control of Afghanistan by “Islamic fundamentalists”.

Hundreds of Afghan women from the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad and Peshawar gathered in front of the UN offices and condemned what they called the “taking over of power by brutal Jehadi forces after the fall of Russian puppet regime in Afghanistan”.

They were holding banners and placards inscribed with slogans demanding punishment for those who committed war crimes in their country. They also displayed photos of the devastation caused in Afghanistan first by the Russians and then by “Islamic fundamentalists”.

A memorandum presented to the UN officials stated that the same gloom was still dominant in their country and most of the number one suspects of war crimes including Sayyaf, Rabbani, Khalili, Qanoni, Dostum, Mohaqiq, Akbari and Fahim were now either ministers or members of the parliament.

They demanded that the UN should drag the Afghan war criminals to the International Court of Justice.
The protesters criticised the western media for showing a peaceful image of Afghanistan after the US occupation, and ignoring killing, looting, corruption, bribery, abduction, rape, drug cultivation, human trafficking, unemployment and other miseries.

The memorandum also criticised the role being given by the US to the Northern Alliance in the new setup, stating: “The Northern Alliance should know that the bleeding wounds they have inflicted upon the people of Afghanistan during all the years of their Jehadi rule of gore and infamy are too open, too painful.”

It said traitors and dark minds were still in control of the fate of Afghan nation and calamities had gripped the motherland. Mr Karzai and his foreign guardians, who had invested in “fundamentalists” for many years, have been given key posts in the executive, judiciary and branches of government, it added.

Karzai offers olive branch to Taliban
Washington Post, April 28, 2006
Reported by Reuters
Several dozen Afghan women held a protest outside U.N. offices in the Pakistani capital to demand democracy and the prosecution of "warlords."
"Today is a black day because it brought civil war to our country in which 65,000 Afghans were killed and now, those criminals are in parliament," said Danish Hamid, a spokeswoman for the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.

Protest against warlords sway in Afghanistan
The Nation, April 29, 2006
By Our Correspondent
ISLAMABAD - To observe April 28,1992, as a Black Day when fundamentalists had entered Kabul, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) staged a protest rally in Islamabad.

According to RAWA on April 28, 1992, after the fall of the Russian puppet regime, fundamentalist jehadi forces took power in Afghanistan and prevailed a reign of terror, rape, looting and destruction.

Over 65,000 people were killed only in Kabul from 1992-96 when the jehadi fundamentalists were replaced by ultra-fundamentalist Taliban. But today again the same criminal jehadi forces, instead of appearing in court of justice as war criminals, have key positions in the government of Hamid Karzai and trying to destabilize the situation.

RAWA says, while the warlords-fostering government of Mr. Karzai every year observe April 28 as a victory day, for Afghan people, particularly women, it is the darkest day in our history when the criminal fundamentalist bands took power in Kabul in 1992 following the collapse of the Russian puppet regime.

It was start of a new wave of terror, destruction and barbarism all over Afghanistan and especially the capital Kabul in the hands of these terrorist gangs. And the gloom of 28th April is still dominant in our country and most of its number one suspects such as Sayyaf, Rabbani, Khalili, Qanoni, Dostum, Mohaqiq, Akbari, Fahim, Ismael etc. are either ministers or members of the parliament.

The RAWA every year stages a protest rally to denounce it as a Black Day. On April 28, 2006, RAWA organized a demonstration in front of the UN headquarter in Islamabad. The demonstrators numbering around 600 women and girls arrived from Peshawar and some other cities of Pakistan and nearby provinces of Afghanistan. A RAWA member presented a memorandum to UN authorities in the UN headquarters in Islamabad asking the UN to consider seriously bringing the top fundamentalist leaders in front of the International Curt for their role in war crimes in the past 14 years.

The demonstrators carried large photos depicting the destruction and devastation in Afghanistan and portraits of top criminals in the government with cross marking on their faces, together with banners and placards in Pashtu, Persian and English.

A number of RAWA activists raised cue slogans, which were responded with fervor by participants in the march. Some of the slogans on the banners were: “Parliament full of drug kingpins, criminals and traitors cant represent our people!”, “Collaboration with any of the fundamentalists is equivalent to treachery”, “The Northern Alliance should be brought to justice”, “April 28 odious than April 27”, “New cabinet: the same donkey with a new saddle.”

The participants criticized Western media for portraying peaceful image of Afghanistan while ignoring killing, looting, corruption, bribery, abduction, rape, drug cultivation, trafficking, wasting stealing of billions of dollars, unemployment and so many other miseries, which are very common in Afghanistan today. They also condemned the negative role of the Pakistan government in the events of April 28, 1992.

Delivering speech, a RAWA activist stated: "The re-emergence of the Northern Alliance criminals in different parts of our country crushed all hopes of our people for peace.

The Northern Alliance need to remember the years 1992 to 1996 when they were in power; when the execrable Gulbaddin Hekmatyar gang turned Kabul to rubble with their daily indiscriminate bombardment and rocketing; when the infamous Mazari-Khalili gang were gouging out the eyes of non-Hazaras; when the vile Sayyaf gang were driving 6-inch nails into the heads of Hazaras and broiling them alive in metal containers; when the perfidious Rabbani-Massoud gangs slaughtered the inhabitants of Afshar and other residential areas in Kabul and whitewashed the faces of all murderers, rapists and looters in history in terms of the barbarity and infamy.

The Northern Alliance should know that the bleeding wounds they have inflicted upon the people of Afghanistan during all the years of their jihadi rule of gore and infamy are too open, too painful.”

A statement in Persian and English was distributed during the rally. The title of the statement was “28th April, Mourning for People - Joy for Fundamentalists”. Parts of the statement read: “Traitors, country-betrayers, and dark minds are in control of our nations fate and our country is sunk in calamities. Mr. Karzai and his foreign guardians, who have invested in fundamentalists for many years, today have given key posts in the executive, legislation and judiciary branches of government, to the most infamous and bloody elements of the Northern Alliance and other savage bands.

“Mr. Karzai and his Afghan and foreign advisers have shown conspicuously that they are ready to shake hands in friendship with the filthiest individuals and parties, who now wear the bogus mask of democracy on their nasty faces. “

24 April, 2006
Hezb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has 34 members in the lower house of parliament
A powerful faction in the new Afghan parliament may still be controlled by a man regarded as a terrorist by the United States government
Institute for War & Peace Reporting, ARR No. 210, April 6, 2006
By Wahidullah Amani in Kabul
Hezb-e-Islami is back, green flag and all. The most radical and powerful of Afghanistan’s Islamic movements is an officially recognised political party which now claims to be one of the largest blocs in parliament.

Party leaders say they are poised to sweep to power in future elections now that they are able to campaign openly.

They also say that they have broken ties with the man most closely identified with Hezb-e-Islami, its founder Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom the United States lists as a wanted terrorist.

Many political analysts, however, are sceptical of the party’s claim that it has reformed.

Hekmatyar, one of the major commanders in the resistance to the Soviet occupation of the Eighties, is an unrepentant mujahedin. He has called repeatedly for a new holy war against the foreign occupiers and those who cooperate with them - including the current Afghan government.

He has publicly vowed that his supporters will never join the present regime.

“Hekmatyar’s policies are his own personal position. He does not represent Hezb-e-Islami,” said Sayed Rahman Wahedyar, a member of the faction in Kabul. “We have cut all ties with Hekmatyar.”

Wahedyar added that member of parliament Khalid Farooqi, a powerful Hezb-e-Islami commander in Paktika province during the mujahedin years, had been named as the party’s new leader.

But the new-look Hezb-e-Islami does not appear to have deviated far from its fundamentalist roots.

The feeling at party headquarters is decidedly conservative. Everyone is dressed in the traditional pirhan-tunbon, the loose shirt and flowing trouser that constitutes Afghan national dress. Most sport the pakul, the soft round hat that became a symbol of mujahedin resistance. And the vast majority wear long beards like those favoured by the Taleban and by Hekmatyar himself.

As a result of last September’s parliamentary election, Hezb-e-Islami has 34 members in the lower house of parliament, making it one of the largest groups in the 249-member body, according to Wahedyar.

Given Afghanistan’s chaotic political landscape, with 81 parties now registered and several more in the works, this represents a significant achievement. Wahedyar says the party would have been even more successful if it had been allowed to register earlier.

“The justice ministry did not want to let Hezb-e-Islami conduct political activities,” said Wahedyar. “They wanted us to change our name and flag. But we resisted.”

It took repeated negotiations with President Hamed Karzai, and one-and-a-half years, to overcome the government’s reluctance to see the symbols of Hekmatyar’s once-formidable power officially displayed.

“This was all engineered by our opponents, who are part of the current government,” said Wahedyar.

Hekmatyar has a host of enemies among those now in power. He engaged in a vicious civil war with many of them after the collapse of communist rule in 1992, when mujahedin commanders destroyed Kabul and much of the rest of the country in a fierce power struggle. He was twice prime minister between 1992 and 1996, although the shifting alliances and violent conflict made his appointment notional.

When the Taleban came to power in 1996, Hekmatyar went into exile in Iran, where he continued to run Hezb-e-Islami.

His outspoken condemnation of the invasion of Afghanistan and of the interim government established in the wake of the September 2001 attacks on the US got him expelled from Iran and earned him a place on the list of terrorists most wanted by the American government. In 2002, the CIA reportedly tried to assassinate him.

Hekmatyar is currently in hiding. Observers say he continues to have broad popular support, especially in the Pashtun-dominated south. An ethnic Pashtun himself, he appeals to many who want to see a strongly Islamic state established in Afghanistan, and who condemn what they see as the corrupting influence of the West.

His supporters say he has been unfairly excluded from power. They point to other former mujahedin leaders and militia commanders who have been accepted into the new government, and ask why Hekmatyar’s alleged crimes are deemed worse than those ascribed to General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the former strongman of the north who is now chief of staff of the armed forces, or of Ismail Khan, who ruled the western province of Herat with an iron hand until being made energy minister in December 2004.

Abdul Gheyas Eleyasi, head of the political parties department at the justice ministry, acknowledged that officials were initially reluctant to grant Hezb-e-Islami an official license.

“We registered them only after we received confirmation from the ministries of defence and the interior, as well as the security organs and UNAMA [the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan] that the party no longer had links with Hekmatyar,” said Eleyasi.

But many suspect that Hekmatyar is still running the show.

“Hekmatyar has played many such games and he has always won them,” said political analyst Fazul Rahman Orya. “Hezb-e-Islami is certainly here with Hekmatyar’s agreement. They are behaving according to Hekmatyar’s wishes, so as to accomplish his goals.”

Tuesday, 11 April, 2006
RAWA launch appeal for Child Sponsorship Program & New Orphanages
There is an urgent need in our growing child sponsorship program. This program, which enables sponsors to build relationships with their sponsored child via the internet, has filled our existing orphanage facilities. To aid the children still living in dire situations, we urgently need to add more of these facilities.

To help us to meet this need, our partners, CharityHelp International and Afghan’s Women’s Mission, have assisted us in implementing a program to enable individuals or organizations to contribute towards an entire orphanage. You and/or your organization can support this effort by providing one-time or on-going operational support for starting new orphanages that we expect will eventually become self-sustaining through our child sponsorship program. For more information on how this can easily be done online, see www.charityhelp.org/rawa.

You and/or your organization can support an orphanage at increasing levels up to founding a complete orphanage. Should you and/or your organization decide to do this, you and/or your organization would instrumental in helping us change hundreds (if not, thousands) of lives over the coming years. The founder of an orphanage would only need to support the initial cost of setting up the orphanage. CharityHelp International and other supporters would take care of all the administration associated with running this project along with on-going solicitation of child and sustaining sponsorships to support annual costs.

If paid via our website, for $16,000 you and/or your organization can become a silver level founding sponsor of a new orphanage (see https://charityhelp.org/sponsor/founding_sponsorship.php). Alternatively, if you and/or your organization are able to pay the money directly to RAWA so we do not need to pay the credit card processor and the International Humanity Center (which provides charitable status in the US); the amount needed can be reduced to $14,500.

Our costs at the orphanages have dramatically increased recently for many reasons including the over 50% increase in rents due to the recent devastating earthquake. Unfortunately, these costs are even higher in war-torn Afghanistan. Even though the orphanage operating costs are still lower in Pakistan we are driven by the need to work towards going home. Those of us who live in Pakistan still live as refugees and could be forced to leave at any time by the Pakistan government. As well, the children deserve to live in orphanages close to their native homes where they can visit their remaining relatives as often as possible. We are nurturing the next generation of Afghan citizens and can do so in our native land with your support. Unfortunately, current sponsorship levels do not support the operating costs for Afghanistan or Pakistan. So, in an effort to keep our individual child sponsorship price as low as possible, CharityHelp International has developed a way for dono! rs to support the whole orphanage via the sustaining sponsorship program. For more information, see: https://charityhelp.org/sponsor/orphanage_sponsor.php

To commemorate these donations, CharityHelp International is announcing the virtual “Wall of Honour”. To honour the founding sponsors, CharityHelp International will create a special page on their website announcing each new orphanage and its Founding Sponsor/s. You and/or your organization will be recognized on a plaque at the orphanage as the founding sponsor.

We are also looking for feedback on these new opportunities or any additional ideas you may have to generate support for RAWA’s orphanages. If you have comments, questions, or ideas about CharityHelp International’s new orphanage sponsorship program please send them to orphanagefund@charityhelp.org

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Mar.21, 2006

UNICEF warns of continued threat facing women and children

An estimated 600 children under the age of five die every day in Afghanistan, mostly due to preventable illnesses, some 50 women die every day due to obstetric complications...

More than one quarter of Afghan babies do not see their fifth birthday (UNESCO, 1997).

According to UNICEF's State of the World's Children Report, Afghanistan has the fourth worst record in under five child mortality, the infant mortality rate being 152 per 1,000 live births.

The Frontier Post October 25, 2000

Kabul 21 March 2006
As Afghanistan's new school year officially begins tomorrow (Wednesday) UNICEF's Deputy Executive Director, Ms. Rima Salah, has warned of a continued threat facing Afghan women and children from high rates of child and maternal mortality, low levels of school enrolment and neglect of children's fundamental rights.

Speaking at the start of a week-long visit to Afghanistan, Ms. Salah expressed concern at the health, education and protection status of children and women; an estimated 600 children under the age of five die every day in Afghanistan, mostly due to preventable illnesses, some 50 women die every day due to obstetric complications, less than half of primary school age girls attend classes, while a quarter of primary school age children undertake some form of work, and an estimated one-third of women are married before the age of 18.

"With more children in school than ever before in Afghanistan, school gates across Afghanistan will open again tomorrow for a new academic year – but at least one in two girls who should be in classes will remain at home," said Ms. Salah. "One in five children in this country do not survive long enough even to reach school age. Others will drop out of school, to support their families. This is a tragedy that threatens progress made in recent years."

Ms. Salah recognized the recent spate of incidents against schools in some part of Afghanistan as undermining the cause of development. "Attacks against education are attacks against the most basic rights of all Afghan people," she said. "We urge communities and authorities to work together to find ways of ensuring all children enjoy the opportunity to go to school."

Ms. Salah is calling upon the international community to increase support to development programmes for women and children. Congratulating the Government for including key targets for improvements in for child and maternal health and education in the recent Afghanistan Compact, she urged donors to provide the resources needed to meet those goals.

"Unless the world makes tangible commitments to the Government and people of Afghanistan, increasing investment in core services such as health, education and protection of children, development will continue to be constrained," noted Ms. Salah. "Efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals will be thwarted unless every Afghan child enjoys a quality basic education, free from abuse and exploitation. These are inalienable rights that we must guarantee."

Ms. Salah will also urge Government and donor representatives to improve outreach of services to Afghanistan's provinces, to reduce disparities between urban and rural communities.

"We have seen so much progress made in recent years, with new institutions in place and stronger policies for women and children, but long-term growth cannot happen if we do not meet our obligations to safeguard health, education and protection," said Ms. Salah. "The children who will flood through those school gates tomorrow, and more importantly those will still remain at home, expect nothing less."

Thursday, 9 March, 2006
RAWA statement on the International Women’s Day — 8 March
“Let’s rise united and resolute for liberation and against the fundamentalism!”
Another Eighth of March has arrived but still the Afghan women are hostage to the fundamentalists’ claws. The continuation of traitor-loving policies of Mr. Karzai and his sympathetic friends by the indication of US government is still like spears entering deeper and deeper into the injured face of our unfortunate people. Whenever the criminal “Emirs” and their commanders commit another heinous crime, instead of being sued, they are rewarded and receive higher posts.

Murder, robbery, kidnapping and the rape of women and children has become the routine. There is a high rate of women committing suicide and an ever expanding cultivation and trafficking of narcotics, all while billions of dollars of foreign aid and public resources are squandered away. Unemployment and homelessness is on the rise. Opening of Kabul Serina Hotel and other hotels of this type in a country with the lowest rate of income per capita in the world doesn’t mean development but it is indeed providing sensual environment for criminals and mocking about the miserable life condition of majority of our nation. The compromising government is unable even to solve smallest of these issues. The country is in chaos.

The last four years of experience in our Afghan nation has confirmed the point that for the government of Karzai, the will of our oppressed nation is not the priority but it is the interests of criminals. Mr. Karzai doesn’t want to and can’t destroy the band of criminals from Afghanistan because the interests of both parties are intertwined.

In the presidential elections the majority of our people gave their votes to Mr. Karzai in the hope that he will prosecute and punish all the criminal fundamentalists for their crimes and atrocities. But he betrayed the vote of the people. That is why in the parliamentary elections, our deceived and hopeless people knew whether they vote or not, the composition of parliament will be made behind the scenes. Jehadi executioners were placed into parliament in order to guarantee the ability to pass and enforce laws that oppress the common people and the country, legitimize the signing of the "Strategic treaty between USA and Afghanistan" and other similar oppressive treaties.

RAWA has stated several times that the government, the court and parliament under the domination of the criminal “Northern Alliance”, the Taliban, Gulbuddini, Parchami and Khaliqi traitors, will never do any good for our bereaved people. Against the unsubstantiated accusations of collaborators that RAWA’s criticisms and attacks on government are always from a negative point of view, treacherousness and corruption has meshed around the roots of government so deeply that its nasty smell has not only been published in the world’s most respected publications; but even Habibullah Qaderi the so called minister of anti-narcotics and Ali Ahmad Jalali, former interior minister, have been forced to confirm that the government is dominated by the mafia.

It is clear in these circumstances, that the grant of more than 10 billion dollars promised during the London Conference will not be used for the masses, but instead like the previous 12 billion dollars, will fill the pockets of the “Northern Alliance” to buy their loyalty to the US.

In the situation when, by the support of criminals the innocent blood of Rahimas, Aminas, Nadias, Gulbers, Saimas and … pours on the ground, the presence of pro-fundamentalist women in the cabinet is nothing but a tool in the hand of government to say to the world and people, “Look at Afghanistan, Women have gained so much freedom!” The mentioned women, like most of the women in the parliament, are as much indifferent to the plight of Afghan people as Sayyaf, Rabbani, Qanonni, Gulbuddin, Mullah Omar and their partners.

The “Northern Alliance”, who gave shelter to Assadullah Sarwari until now, today they want that by punishing him to death, the Afghan peoples’ desire to prosecute the filthier criminals than him, will willow in despair and vanish forever.

Our people and especially the mournful women will not abandon the pursuit of the trial and punishment of religious fascist and Soviet puppets for any price or condition, because they have realized this now more than ever before, that until these unchaste felons are thrown off the throne, they will not be witness to the dawn of freedom, democracy and prosperity in their Afghanistan.

We are not alone in our difficult and tumultuous struggle against the “Northern Alliance” and their Gulbuddini, Talibi and Al-Qaeda brothers. Women of Iran, Kurdistan, Palestine, Turkey, Latin America and other countries are in combat for democracy and against the plague of fundamentalism and war. We sympathize with them and we must assist the movement of women in rest of the world by intensifying our decisive struggle against fundamentalism and their supporters in the region.

Regards to the imprisoned freedom-loving women in Iran and all over the world!

Long live the solidarity between the resilient women of Afghanistan and other countries!

Down with all fundamentalists, the most evil enemies of Afghanistan and human beings!

Hold high the glorious flag of RAWA and all organizations and persons supporting democracy against criminal fundamentalists!

BBC NEWS, February 26, 2006
“Millions of dollars worth of aid money is being wasted”
Ashraf Ghani: "More than 90% of the more than $1bn that was spent on about 400 UN projects in Afghanistan in 2002 was a waste of money"
By Toby Poston, BBC News business reporter
As more than 5,000 British troops are being deployed in Afghanistan, it is becoming clear that the dire security situation is just one of many obstacles that hold back reconstruction efforts.

True, security is a major worry for aid agencies, who saw 30 of their workers die last year.

But in some cases, the agencies' wasteful bureaucracies are also holding back efforts to rebuild this war ravaged country, according to Ashraf Ghani, who has wr

‘With All Our Strength’ – Published June 2003, Routledge

Afghan parliamentarians: "Women prisoners are raped in a Kabul prison"
BBC Persian (translated by RAWA), November 14, 2007
The delegation of Afghan parliament believe the situation in the Afghan prisons is worse then that is reflected in the Amnesty International report

Stop Human Catastrophe: Help Afghan Refugees!

UNICEF warns of continued threat facing women and children

An estimated 600 children under the age of five die every day in Afghanistan, mostly due to preventable illnesses, some 50 women die every day due to obstetric complications...

‘With All Our Strength’ – Published June 2003, Routledge

Afghan parliamentarians: "Women prisoners are raped in a Kabul prison" BBC Persian (translated by RAWA), November 14, 2007 The delegation of Afghan parliament believe the situation in the Afghan prisons is worse then that is reflected in the Amnesty International report

Stop Human Catastrophe: Help Afghan Refugees!

UNICEF warns of continued threat facing women and children

An estimated 600 children under the age of five die every day in Afghanistan, mostly due to preventable illnesses, some 50 women die every day due to obstetric complications...

Afghan parliamentarians: "Women prisoners are raped in a Kabul prison"
BBC Persian (translated by RAWA), November 14, 2007
The delegation of Afghan parliament believe the situation in the Afghan prisons is worse then that is reflected in the Amnesty International report