Afghanistan School Girls Poisoned

Sadly, once the last of the U.S. military presence is "officially" removed from Afghanistan, you know, and I know, and we all know, what will happen to any Afghani girl who dares to go to school, and to any Afghani female who wants to teach, or nurse in a hospital, or work as a secretary, or be a clerk in a grocery store, or try out for an Olympic running team, or play badmitton or chess, or learn how to read and write...

Official: 122 girls, 3 teachers poisoned at Afghan school

From Nick Paton Walsh, CNN

updated 5:23 PM EDT, Wed May 23, 2012

 

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- More than 120 girls and three teachers were admitted to an Afghanistan hospital Wednesday after being poisoned in their classes with a type of spray, a Takhar provincial official said. The incident occurred in the provincial capital of Talokhan, in the Bibi Hajera girls school, said Dr. Hafizullah Safi, director of public health for the northern Afghanistan province. Forty of the 122 girls were still hospitalized, he said, with symptoms including dizziness, vomiting, headaches and loss of consciousness.

Blood samples have been sent to Kabul in an effort to determine the substance used, he said. "A number of girls from 15 to 18 were brought from a school to hospital today," said hospital director Dr. Habibullah Rostaqi.

"Generally they are not in a critical condition. We are looking after them, but let's see what happens later. We understand so far from the situation ... they are more traumatized."

"The Afghan people know that the terrorists and the Taliban are doing these things to threaten girls and stop them going to school," said Khalilullah Aseer, spokesman for Takhar police. "That's something we and the people believe. Now we are implementing democracy in Afghanistan and we want girls to be educated, but the government's enemies don't want this."

There have been several instances of girls being poisoned in schools in recent years. In April, also in Takhar province, more than 170 women and girls were hospitalized after drinking apparently poisoned well water at a school. Local health officials blamed the acts on extremists opposed to women's education.

While nearly all the incidents involve girls, earlier this month nearly 400 boys at a school in Khost province fell ill after drinking water from a well that a health official said may have been poisoned.

The Taliban is struggling with the country's government over Afghan schools. It recently demanded the closure of schools in two eastern provinces. In Ghazni province, the school closure was in retaliation for the government's ban on motorbikes often used by insurgents. Locals in Wardak province said the Taliban has been a little more lenient and has allowed schools to open late after making changes to the curriculum.

The battle indicates broader fears about Afghanistan's future amid the drawdown of U.S. troops in the country. NATO leaders on Monday signed off on U.S. President Barack Obama's exit strategy from Afghanistan, which calls for an end to combat operations next year and the withdrawal of the U.S.-led international military force by the end of 2014.

During the Taliban's rule from 1996 to 2001, many Afghan girls were not allowed to attend school. The schools began reopening after the regime was toppled by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. However, observers say abuse of women remains common in the post-Taliban era and is often accepted in conservative and traditional families, where women are barred from school and sometimes [! only sometimes?] subjected to domestic violence.

Afghan Education Minister Dr. Farooq Wardak told the Education World Forum in London in January 2011 that the Taliban had abandoned its opposition to education for girls, but the group has never confirmed that.

Not Such Good News About Women from Around the World

In contrast to what's going on here in the USA and elsewhere that is upbuilding, generous and loving involving women (see posts below), here are two stories from earlier today that - well, they speak for themselves:

Doctors remove nails allegedly hammered into maid by employers
By Iqbal Athas, For CNN
August 27, 2010 9:43 a.m. EDT
Colombo, Sri Lanka (CNN) -- Doctors at a Sri Lankan hospital operated for three hours Friday to remove 18 nails and metal particles allegedly hammered into the arms, legs and forehead of a maid by her Saudi employer.

Dr. Kamal Weeratunga said the surgical team in the southern town of Kamburupitiya pulled nails ranging from about one to three inches from Lahadapurage Daneris Ariyawathie's body. He said doctors have not yet removed four small metal particles embedded in her muscles.

"She is under heavy antibiotics but in a stable condition," Weeratunga said.

Sri Lankan officials, meanwhile, met with Saudi diplomats in Colombo to urge an investigation into the incident.

"It was cruel treatment which should be roundly condemned," said L.K. Ruhunuge of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment.

He said the Sri Lanka government has forwarded to Saudi authorities a detailed report on the incident including statements from Ariyawathie.

Ariyawathie left Sri Lanka on March 25 to work as a housemaid in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia after the bureau registered her as a person obtaining a job from an officially recognized job agency.

She was held down by her employer's wife while the employer hammered the heated nails, Ruhunuge told CNN. She apparently had complained to the couple that she was being overworked, Ruhunuge said.

The nails were hammered into her arms and legs while one was on her forehead, he said.

Rest of article.


Officials: Schoolgirls, teachers sick from poison gas
August 25, 2010
Dozens of schoolgirls and teachers were sickened Wednesday by poison gas in Afghanistan, medical and government officials said.

The latest incident, this one at a high school, is the ninth such case involving the poisoning of schoolgirls, said Asif Nang, spokesman for the nation's education ministry.

Dr. Kabir Amiri said 59 students and 14 teachers were brought to the hospital, and were faring better.

"We don't have good equipment to verify the kind of gas that they were poisoned with, but we have taken their blood tests to send to Turkmenistan for verifying the type of gas" that was used, Amiri said.

Many Afghan girls were not allowed to attend school during the Taliban's rule from 1996 to 2001. Girls' schools began reopening after the Islamist regime was toppled. The United Nations children's agency, UNICEF, estimates that 2 million Afghan girls attend school these days.

But female educational facilities, students and teachers have come under vicious attack as the insurgency has strengthened and spread from Taliban strongholds in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand.

A report compiled last year by the humanitarian agency CARE documented 670 education-related attacks in 2008, including murder and arson. Much of the violence in what CARE called an "alarming trend" occurred at girls' schools.

June: Another suspected poisoning at girls school
May: What caused illness in girls school?
April: Taliban suspected of sickening students

CNN's Matiullah Mati contributed to this report.

If you think I'm being hysterical, I remind you that less than a week ago the Taliban publicly stoned a woman and a man to death for wanting to marry each other against the wishes of their families.  This was called "adultery."

Taliban stones couple for adultery in Afghanistan - USATODAY.comAug 16, 2010 ... Taliban militants stoned a young couple to death for adultery after they ran away from their families in northern Afghanistan, ...

Taliban stone couple to death for adultery - World news - South ...Aug 16, 2010 ... Taliban militants in northern Afghanistan stoned a young couple to death for adultery, which a rights group said was the first confirmed use ...

Taliban Stone Couple For Adultery: First Confirmed Case Since 2001 ...Aug 17, 2010 ... Human rights activists are indignant as the Taliban stone a couple for the first time since 2001 in Kunduz, Afghanistan. ...[Human rights activists are indignant?  They are INDIGNANT about such an atrocity?  What fricking planet are those people living on?]

Taliban Stones Couple to Death for Illegal... | GatherAug 17, 2010 ... Aug 17, 2010 The Taliban stoned a couple to death for illegal adultery in Afghanistan over the weekend in what was called the first time ...

We know what stripe the Taliban are.  Why is it so hard to believe they are attacking innocent children and teachers?  Every single Muslim in this country should be standing up on her or his rooftop shouting at the top of their lungs condemning the actions of these barbarians.  Why am I hearing - nothing?

Afghan Women Fear Loss of Modest Gains

From The New York Times
A reminder that we really haven't come a long way, baby...

By ALISSA J. RUBIN
Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan
Published: July 30, 2010

MAHMUD-E RAQI, Afghanistan — Women’s precarious rights in Afghanistan have begun seeping away. Girls’ schools are closing; working women are threatened; advocates are attacked; and terrified families are increasingly confining their daughters to home.For women, instability, as much as the Taliban themselves, is the enemy. Women are casualties of the fighting, not only in the already conservative and embattled Pashtun south and east, but also in districts in the north and center of the country where other armed groups have sprung up.

As Afghan and Western governments explore reconciliation with the Taliban, women fear that the peace they long for may come at the price of rights that have improved since the Taliban government was overthrown in 2001.

“Women do not want war, but none of them want the Taliban of 1996 again; no one wants to be imprisoned in the yards of their houses,” said Rahima Zarifi, the Women’s Ministry representative from the northern Baghlan Province.

Interviews around the country with at least two dozen female members of Parliament, government officials, activists, teachers and young girls suggest a nuanced reality — fighting constricts women’s freedoms nearly as much as a Taliban government, and conservative traditions already limit women’s rights in many places.

Women, however, express a range of fears about a Taliban return, from political to domestic — that they will be shut out of negotiations about any deals with the insurgents and that the Taliban’s return would drive up bride prices, making it more profitable for a family to force girls into marriage earlier.

For many women, the prospect of a resurgence of the Taliban or other conservative groups is stark. “It will ruin our life,” said Shougoufa, 40, as she sorted through sequins and gold sparkles at the bazaar in the city of Pul-i-Khumri in Afghanistan’s north. “I am a tailor and I need to come to the bazaar to buy these things,” she said. “But if the Taliban come, I will not be able to come. Already we are hearing some girls cannot go to their work anymore.”

In teachers’ tea-break rooms, beauty shop training sessions, bazaars and the privacy of their homes, young women worry that their parents will marry them off early, so they will not be forced to marry Taliban.

In the Pashtun-dominated district of Taghob, east of Kabul, girls’ schools have been closed and any teaching is done at home, the provincial education director said.

That does not trouble some local officials.

“Look, our main priority is to feed our people, to provide rest and to protect their lives,” said Haji Farid, a local member of Parliament. “Why are people focusing on education and sending girls to school? Boys walk three, four, five kilometers to their school. How can a girl walk two, three, four kilometers? During a war you cannot send a girl beyond her door. No one can guarantee her honor. So it is hard to send your daughter to school.”

In Kandahar, Helmand and Zabul, all unstable southern provinces, there are girls’ schools open in the provincial capitals, but in outlying districts there are few, if any. In Zabul Province, there are just six schools for girls, four in the capital and two outside, but few families send their girls to school because of the fighting, said Muhammad Alam, the acting head of the provincial education department. (Photo: A student speaks during a class at the Jamal Agha Girls School in Kapisa Province.  By Adam Ferguson for The New York Times.)

In Baghlan Province, in northern Afghanistan, the situation for women has steadily worsened over the past year. Ms. Zarifi, the Women’s Ministry representative, has endured assassination attempts and demonstrations against her work. Three months ago, a female member of the provincial council was paralyzed in an attack, and a woman was stabbed to death in the daytime in the middle of the provincial capital earlier in July.

By contrast, most of Kapisa Province, which lies northeast of Kabul, is peaceful. There is a mediation program in the capital to help women and girls when they face domestic violence. In the predominantly ethnically Tajik north there are large, lively schools for girls, where families even allow those who are married to complete high school.

Women’s advocates are concerned that they are increasingly being shut out of political decisions. At an international conference in Kabul on July 20, which was meant to showcase the country’s plans for the future, President Hamid Karzai said nothing about how women’s rights might be protected in negotiations.  The very first meeting on negotiations, held by Mr. Karzai on July 22 with former leaders who had fought the Taliban, did not include a single woman, despite government pledges.

Part 2

Religious Terrorists Target School Girls

This is what happens when religious fundamentalists think they're right and everyone else is wrong. It is happening in this country - the people of the religious right are just as warped in their beliefs as the Taliban are in theirs.  And, as we know, these people can even justify committing murder in the name of their 'God' while claiming to be devout Christians.   When you think that 'God' is on YOUR side, you can justify anything, any atrocity, in the name of your 'God.'  That is really, really sick.
Article at Yahoo News
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 44 mins ago
KABUL – Dozens of Afghan schoolgirls have fallen ill in recent days after reporting a strange odor in their classrooms in northern Afghanistan, prompting an investigation into whether they were targeted by militants who oppose education for girls or victims of mass hysteria.

Either way, the reports from three schools within 2 miles (3 kilometers) of one another in Kunduz province have raised alarm in a city threatened by the Taliban and their militant allies.

The latest cases occurred Sunday, when 13 girls became sick, Kunduz provincial spokesman Mahbobullah Sayedi said. Another 47 complained of dizziness and nausea the day before, and 23 fell ill last Wednesday.

All complained of a strange smell in class before they fell ill.

"I came out from the main hall, and I saw lots of other girls scattered everywhere," Anesa, a 9-year-old who was hospitalized briefly Sunday, told The Associated Press. "Then suddenly, I felt that I was losing my balance and falling."

None of the illnesses was serious and the girls were only hospitalized for a short time. The Health Ministry said blood samples were inconclusive and were being sent to Kabul for further testing to determine the cause of the illnesses.

"This is a matter of concern not only for us but for the families," Sayedi said, blaming the sicknesses on "enemies" who oppose education for girls.

In the capital of Kabul, President Hamid Karzai's spokesman, Waheed Omar, said any attempt to keep girls out of school is a "terrorist act."

Kunduz had been relatively quiet until a few years ago when Taliban activity began to increase, threatening NATO supply routes south from Central Asia. Late Saturday, NATO and Afghan troops killed one militant and detained several others in Kunduz province.

Girls were not allowed to attend school when the Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan. The group was ousted from power in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. The Taliban and other conservative extremist groups have been known to target schoolgirls.

In one of the most chilling attacks, men on motorbikes sprayed acid from squirt guns and water bottles onto 15 schoolgirls and teachers in 2008 as they walked to a girls school in Kandahar, the southern city that is the spiritual birthplace of the militant movement.

Previous cases of sudden illness in schools have left families too frightened to send their daughters to school.

Last year, dozens of girls were hospitalized in Kapisa province, just northeast of Kabul, after many collapsed with headaches and nausea following reports of a strange odor in their schoolyard. The Taliban was blamed, but research into similar mass sickenings elsewhere has suggested that some might be the result of group hysteria. [But the goal is achieved - that's the point - by using chemicals to sicken some of the girls the rest are terrorized into hysteria.  The parents then keep the girls out of school due to fear.  And the barbarians win.]

Taliban Whips 17-Year Old Girl for Refusing to Marry a Dirty Old Man

Article from the Hindu.com: India's Muslims denounce Taliban whipping of girl as un-Islamic April 4, 2009 New Delhi (IANS): After video clips of a 17-year-old girl being flogged in public by Taliban fighters in Pakistan's Swat valley were shown on TV, India's Islamic scholars denounced it as "un-Islamic" and "satanic" and condemned it as "gross violation" of Quranic codes. Renowned Islamic scholar Maulana Wahiduddin Khan spoke out strongly against the incident and added that if anything, the act was absolutely "un-Islamic - even satanic". "This kind of treatment is neither Islamic nor human. In fact, not only is it un-Islamic and inhuman, but also satanic," Khan, who has authored over 200 books on Islam, told IANS. "The first thing that should be done is to educate people, develop ethical values, sensitivity towards women and treat them equally. Society can be reformed through education - punishment (of the perpetrators) can never be the starting point for any kind of reform or change," he added. Similarly, Mushirul Hasan, vice chancellor of the Jamia Millia Islamia university, condemned the incident saying that it was a wrong portrayal of Islam, which preaches exactly opposite of what the Taliban were seen doing to the hapless young girl. "I am horrified. This (incident) is a gross violation of Islamic and Quranic injunctions which teaches humanity, love, peace and magnanimity," Hasan told IANS. The dangers of imposing Sharia laws in Pakistan's restive Swat Valley were brought into sharp focus Friday with the airing of a two-minute video showing a 17-year-old screaming, burqa-clad girl being whipped by Taliban fighters for coming "out of her house with another man who was not her husband". [That's the charge, but it's a lie. See the link to the Los Angeles Times article below for the real scoop - she refused to marry a much older icky man, and so charges were trumped up against her and she was whipped as a punishment for her faked-up "crimes against Islam."] The grainy video, shot on a mobile phone, showed the girl face down on the ground. Two men held her arms and feet while a third, a black-turbaned man with a flowing beard, whipped her repeatedly. Salima Khan, a student doing her PhD in Delhi University, said that she literally boiled in anger after seeing the video clip on YouTube, the popular video sharing website and then again on TV. "I can't believe how anybody can humiliate and beat up an innocent young girl in the name of religion. And what was her fault - that she was seen with a man who was not her husband! Who in their right state of mind would ever dare to do such a dastardly act? "Such acts just show how Islam has been grossly misinterpreted by a handful of people who are using it as a tool to serve their own cause," Salima said angrily. On YouTube, the video received thousands of hits overnight and a barrage of comments. One of the comments read: "These people (Taliban) should be given a taste of their own medicine. They should be whipped in public for maligning the name of Islam and inflicting torture on poor, helpless women". Another comment from an Indian woman read: "Thank God I was born in India and not there (Swat valley). There they treat women like animals - no, even worse. To live a life like that seems like sheer hell." However, the authorities of Darul Uloom, one of the most renowned seminaries in the Deoband town of western Uttar Pradesh, chose to keep mum. Maulana Abdul Khaleeq Madrasi, pro vice chancellor of the seminary, told IANS: "We cannot give any statement on the matter from the institution as we don't know the details at the moment". India has an estimated 140 million Muslims, the third largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan.

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For the REAL REASON for this supposed "punishment", see the Los Angeles Times April 4, 2009 article (includes link to video) by Mubashir Zaidi and Laura King, with contribution from Special Correspondent Zulfiqar Ali in the city of Peshawar: "This is intolerable," prominent human rights activist Asma Jahangir told journalists in the eastern city of Lahore. Jahangir said the girl was believed to have been punished after refusing to marry a Taliban commander in the Swat Valley, where the government in February struck a truce with Islamic militants to stem violence. The militants then accused her of immoral behavior and ordered 34 lashes, Pakistani news reports said. The video, shot with a cellphone, initially shows the girl, clad in an all-enveloping black burka, being held by men while another begins striking her. She can be heard shouting for help in the Pashto language, spoken by most people in Swat. She is then dragged to another location, held down and flogged. Several dozen people can be seen watching. "For God's sake, please stop, stop it," the girl pleads as the whip falls. "I am dying." Off-camera, another militant gives orders: "Hold her feet tightly. Lift her burka a bit."

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You can bet your bippy that there were no women in that circle of spectators savoring every single delicious lash and the girl's screams, heh. Now the Taliban is saying the video was FAKE, created by its enemies to discredit it. Yeah right. The assholes who blew up the Swat Valley Buddha would not hesitate for a second to whip a defenseless teenage girl for refusing to marry a man she doesn't want. How many of them held her down? How many men were tightly packed in that circle around the girl and her tormentors, no doubt salivating over every single lash and scream of the helpless victim? PERVERTS! A pox on them all. I hope they all die a horrible death, but not before their penises falling off from a dread disease, and that they all rot in Hell for ever.