Violence Against Women: Acid Attacks

I'm writing a paper on female genital mutilation, and it's been a disturbing research experience. I'll share some of the stories I have found at another time.

However, on a related note (the depressing state of women's rights and safety everywhere) I was just forwarded a story about acid attacks in Asia. I met a victim of this this heinous crime years ago, but if I hadn't the severity of this type of attack would be nearly unbelievable:

This month in Afghanistan, men on motorcycles threw acid on a group of girls who dared to attend school. One of the girls, a 17-year-old named Shamsia, told reporters from her hospital bed: “I will go to my school even if they kill me. My message for the enemies is that if they do this 100 times, I am still going to continue my studies.”

When I met Naeema Azar, a Pakistani woman who had once been an attractive, self-confident real estate agent, she was wearing a black cloak that enveloped her head and face. Then she removed the covering, and I flinched.

Acid had burned away her left ear and most of her right ear. It had blinded her and burned away her eyelids and most of her face, leaving just bone.

Six skin grafts with flesh from her leg have helped, but she still cannot close her eyes or her mouth; she will not eat in front of others because it is too humiliating to have food slip out as she chews.

Full Story & Related Multimedia: Terrorism That's Personal
Hijab Flutter: Nazia Khan

Please keep the women of the world in your duas/prayers/thoughts.

War Against Women: The Use Of Rape As A Weapon In Congo's Civil War

(If you're in a hurry, skip past the video and just read the article excerpts I've posted. It's the type of story that makes one's "problems" seem non-existent.)

Right now there's a war taking place in the heart of Africa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and more people have died there than in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Darfur combined.
. . .
Dr. Denis Mukwege is the director of Panzi Hospital in eastern Congo. In this war against women, his hospital is the frontline. One of the latest victims he’s treating is Sifa M'Kitambala. She was raped just two days before the team arrived by soldiers who raided her village.

"They just cut her at many places," Dr. Mukwege explains.

Sifa was pregnant, but that didn't stop her rapists. Armed with a machete, they even cut at her genitals.

In the last ten years in Congo, hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, most of them gang raped. Panzi Hospital is full of them.
. . .
"Has rape almost become the norm here?" Cooper asks Anneka Van Woudenberg, who is the senior Congo researcher at Human Rights Watch.

"I think because of the widespread nature of the war, because there has been so much violence, rape is now on a daily basis - rape is the norm," Van Woudenberg replies.

"Women get raped in wars all the time. How is it different here?" Cooper asks.

"I think what's different in Congo is the scale and the systematic nature of it, indeed, as well, the brutality. This is not rape because soldiers have got bored and have nothing to do. It is a way to ensure that communities accept the power and authority of that particular armed group. This is about showing terror. This is about using it as a weapon of war," she explains.
. . .
In some villages as many as 90 percent of the women have been raped; men in the villages are usually unarmed, and incapable of fighting back. In Walungu the team found 24-year-old Lucienne M’Maroyhi. She was at home one night with her two children and her younger brother, when six soldiers broke in. They tied her up and began to rape her, one by one.

"I was lying on the ground, and they gave a flashlight to my younger brother so that he could see them raping me," she recalls.

"They were telling your brother to hold the flashlight?" Cooper asks.

"Yes," she says. "They raped me like they were animals, one after another. When the first one finished, they washed me out with water, told me to stand up, so the next man could rape me."

She was convinced they'd kill her, just as soldiers had murdered her parents the year before. Instead, they turned to her brother. "They wanted him to rape me but he refused, and told them, 'I cannot do such a thing. I cannot rape my sister.' So they took out their knives and stabbed him to death in front of me," she recalls.
. . .
"When they take a woman to rape her, they'll line up the family, they'll line up other members of the communities to actually witness that," Registre says. "They make them watch. And so, what that means for that particular woman when it's all over, is that total shame, personally, to have been witnessed by so many people as she's being violated."

Many of the women in Dr. Mukwege’s hospital are not only blamed for what happened to them, they are shunned because of fears they’ve contracted HIV and shunned because their rapes were so violent they can no longer control their bodily functions.

Dr. Mukwege says he's doing about five surgeries a day.

His patients often have had objects inserted into their vaginas, like broken bottles, bayonets. Some women have even been shot between the legs by their rapists.

"Why would somebody do that? Why would somebody shoot a woman inside?" Cooper asks.

"In the beginning I was asking myself the same question. This is a show of force, of power, it's done to destroy the person," Dr. Mukwege says. "Sex is being used to commit evil. People flee. They become refugees. They can't get help, they become malnourished and it's disease which finishes them off."
. . .
There may be no justice in Congo, but there are organizations trying to help rape survivors get back on their feet. "Women For Women" teaches survivors how to make soap, how to cook - skills they can use to earn money. They also learn how to read and write. It is the first time many of these women have ever been in a classroom - it is their chance for a whole new life.

Remember Lucienne M’Maroyhi? She’s jumped at that chance. She hopes to start her own business one day.

She is also now the mother of a little baby girl, born a year ago. The father is one of her rapists, one of the men who killed Lucienne's brother. She named the girl "Luck."

"I named her Luck because I went through many hardships," she explains. "I could have been killed in the forest. But I got my life back. I have hope."

Hope is not something you’d expect Congo’s rape survivors to still cling to. But they do.

Each morning in Panzi hospital they gather to raise their voices, singing at a religious service. Our sufferings on earth, they sing, will be relieved in heaven.

Relief in Congo, it seems, is just too much to ask for.

Full Story: 60 Minutes

Taxes

My paperwork is sitting with the family accountant. He's got my W-2, my 1099-MISC and a 1098-T as well. As a result, my conscience is killing me. I'm filing taxes for the purposes of abiding by the law of the land, but dang it by doing so I'm perpetuating my role as a silent partner in war crimes.

The US Campaign to End the [Apartheid] Israeli Occupation says: "in 2007, the United States gave Israel $2.34 billion in military aid to enforce its illegal military occupation and siege of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. That amounts to each individual tax payer giving on average $8.56 to [apartheid] Israel to commit its human rights abuses."

Mind you, this is just Apartheid Israel. Imagine if we added the cost of imprisoning folks for non-violent crimes (in this country), Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. etc.

Afghanistan

9-11-01: 6 Years Today

Today undoubtedly marks a sad day in our country's history. However, what saddens me more is that we won't practice what we preach. Why do we, while mourning our losses, continue to kill innocent people overseas?

3,000 people died in the World Trade Center Attacks.

Over 650,000 people have died as a result of the illegal war we are conducting in Iraq.

It's 9-11 EVERY DAY in Iraq!

(Not to mention Afghanistan, Palestine, etc.!)

World Refugee Day

Food for thought as we near the end of World Refugee Day:

• As of December 31, 2005, the largest source countries of refugees are the Palestinian Territories, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, and Sudan.

• An estimated 80% of refugees are women and children. They often carry the heaviest burden of survival for themselves and their families. Women and adolescent girls in refugee settings are especially vulnerable to exploitation, rape, abuse and other forms of gender-based violence.

Source: Wikipedia

Privilege

Subhan'Allah. This story is another reminder of just how fortunate and privileged we are.

Chinese Leave Guantánamo for Albanian Limbo

TIRANA, Albania — Ahktar Qassim Basit says he is not angry about the four years he spent as an American prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, before his captors mumbled a brief apology and flew him to this drab Balkan capital to begin a new life as a refugee.

It is this new life in Albania, Mr. Basit and other former Guantánamo detainees say, that is driving them to desperation.

The men, Muslims from western China’s Uighur ethnic minority, were freed from their confinement in Cuba after they were found to pose no threat to the United States. They have now lived for more than a year in a squalid government refugee center on the grubby outskirts of Tirana, guarded by armed policemen.

The men have been told that they will need to get work to move out of the center, they said, but that they must learn the Albanian language to get work permits. For now, they subsist on free meals heavy with macaroni and rice, and monthly stipends of about $67, which they spend mostly on brief telephone calls to their families. But some of the men have already lost hope of ever seeing their wives and children again.

“We suffered very much at Guantánamo, but we continue to suffer here,” Mr. Basit said. “The other prisoners had their countries, but we are like orphans: we have no place to go.”

Mr. Basit and four other men here, who spent time at a hamlet in Afghanistan run by Uighur separatists, are still considered terrorist suspects by China’s Communist government. Only Albania’s pro-American government would give them asylum, but Albanian officials have since told the men they cannot afford to give them much else.

Things could be worse, the former prisoners note. At least 15 of the 17 Uighurs who remain at Guantánamo have also been cleared for release, but not even Albania will accept them — and neither will the United States. Instead, American diplomats say they have asked nearly 100 countries to provide asylum to the detainees, only to find that Chinese officials have warned some of the same countries not to accept them.

Read on at: NY Times

San Luis Obispo Activists Seek Peaceful, Educational Response to Daniel Pipes' Offensive Presence at Cal Poly

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

San Luis Obispo Activists Seek Peaceful, Educational Response to Daniel Pipes' Offensive Presence at Cal Poly

(San Luis Obispo, 3/4/2007) – Cal Poly Student Peace Activists Organize a Silent Candle Light Vigil, in response to Daniel Pipes' presence at Cal Poly, to commemorate the lost lives in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Occupied Territories.

Cal Poly student organizations, including the Muslim Student Association (MSA), Students for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (SJPME), and the Progressive Student Alliance (PSA) are planning a silent candle light vigil in front of the Cal Poly Spanos Theatre (on the corner of Grand Avenue and South Perimeter) on Monday, March 5th at 6:30pm. This vigil is intended to raise awareness about the humanitarian toll the Middle East wars have taken on the lives of innocent civilians. Daniel Pipes, one of the radical and extreme supporters of the Iraq war -- and war on other Middle Eastern nations -- is scheduled to speak in the Spanos Theatre on the same night.

As students striving to increase awareness and tolerance of different faiths and cultures, we find it disturbing and offensive to have a hatemonger and racist such as Daniel Pipes speaking at our campus. Pipes has made some appalling comments and sweeping generalizations about Muslims, African Americans, Arabs and Palestinians; "The Palestinians are a miserable people...and they deserve to be." (Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July 2001), "...black converts tend to hold vehemently anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-Semitic attitudes." (Commentary, 6/1/2000), "Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene...All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most." (National Review, 11/19/90)

While we stand for freedom of speech and patriotism, we reject and condemn in the strongest terms, hate speech, bigotry and racism, which all undermine and destroy efforts towards attaining mutual understanding and peace amongst our different communities. We also condemn the oppression, subjugation and torture of innocent civilians and citizens of the United States and other nations.

We call upon all people of conscience to join us for a silent candle light vigil this Monday to commemorate the loss of life in the Middle East. Bring your candles and wear white to stand up for peace, justice and tolerance towards all nations of the world.

####

For further information about the Candle Light Vigil, contact:
Naiyerah Kolkailah: (805) 550-5917, naiyerah@gmail.com
Stella Atiya: stella.atiya@gmail.com

My Hero

I got the poem below over email sometime ago, I thought I'd post it for those of you who may not yet have seen it. I'm not sure who it's by, but it makes me smile every time I read it.

My Hero.

My hero is the French girl who shaved her head when they said she couldn't wear the scarf.

My hero is the Palestinian girl who tells the soldier it is her duty to visit Jerusalem.

My hero is the black girl in America, passing with flying colors in a class not meant to be hers.

My hero is the Latina who rises when they dare to question her contributions to this nation.

My hero is the Afghan girl, always raising her head up high against communism and its young brother the fanatic bearded man.

My hero is the Iraqi girl, martyred when America raped her country.

My hero is the Chechen girl, holding steadfast to the rope of Allah.

My hero is the Desi, marching in Britain for an Umma she's never seen but has touched deep within the heart.

and to the Malaysian girl, brightly clad under Ramadan lights, with hands cupped, hoping God will drop her a dime of luck for her prayers.

My heroes are my grandmothers, grabbing rifles from trigger happy soldiers and waving white cloth when their sons were taken to prison.

My hero is my mother, our mothers, always fixing us a hot plate and making sure our homework is always neat, blessed by the virtue of Allah, given the patience to kiss their fallen son and forgive him,

While their daughters look on painfully in a world that throws bullets and scowls at their braided locks and dangling scarves.