Women in Burkas Surround Afghan Embassy in Washington

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Tuesday September 12, 2006 12:00 by Sara Cantrell - Afghan Wire News

American Women Demonstrate in Chains and Burkas Against Afghan Embassy on 9/11

"America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way around.
Human rights invented America." - President Jimmy Carter

Following that credo, on September 11, 2006, American women handcuffed and chained themselves to the Afghan Embassy in Washington, DC to protest against Hamid Karzai's oppressive government. A spokeswoman stated that this was "just the start of demonstrations against the Afghan Embassy in Washington to protest President Karzai's illegal imprisonment of innocent Americans and treatment of Afghan women."

American Women Chained to Afghan Embassy on 9/11/2006

American Women handcuffed and chained themselves to the Afghan Embassy at the moment the first plane hit the World Trade Center five years ago. They each had their own key hanging around their neck on a small cord. If police officers told them to un-cuff from the fence, they were going to ask him to explain why, and stand there in a line demanding to see Ambassador Jawad. Instead they chained theirselves to the Embassy when Afghan security threatened them and said the Ambassador was not there and would not talk to them. Shortly after handcuffing themselves to the embassy wearing burkas, Ambassador Jawad agreed to meet the women. He was there, and he did talk to them. The Taliban executed women for wearing nail polish. Mr. Hamid Karzai simply tortures them and imprisons them, not for nail polish, but for speaking out, divorce, adultery, sex outside of marriage, and many other things. Americans must never fear exercising the Constitutional rights paid for with American blood for more than 200 years.

There is no greater symbol of the oppression and horror of Afghanistan than the Burka. Afghanistan is the only country in the world in which the Burka is worn nationwide (in some Afghan areas of Pakistan, women still wear the Burka).

Speaking for FREE THEM NOW, the spokeswoman said "We demand justice, and if it takes a dozern Burkas surrounding the Afghan Embassy on September 11th 2006, then 300 Burkas surrounding the Afghan Embassy on October 12th, the anniversary of the first bomb being dropped on the Taliban in the war of liberation, and then 1000 more Burkas surrounding the Afghan Embassy on November 12, 2006, the anniversary of the American liberation of Kabul, then we will do it. But the terror and oppression must be stopped."

"When a woman wears a Burka she demonstrates her subservient submission to men. This is what Mr. Karzai wants. Women and men must submit to his total authority in his government. No court, no minister, no policeman, prosecutor, or official will disagree with Mr. Karzai, for if they do, they are fired immediately, and later arrested in many cases. Mr. Karzai has built a complete dictatorship under the very nose of the international community. His secret police run rampant with political arrests, and even run torture chambers just a few miles from Mr. Karzai's palace."

Afghan security was prepared to arrest the American women until photographers showed up from the Washington Post and Polaris Images. Once news crews were there, a senior Afghan official, Mr. Fazel Fazel, Embassy Political Officer, was quoted as saying, "God no, God no, don't let the press photograph American police touching women in Burkas." The DC Metro Police refused to interfere in what the DC Chief of Police called a peaceful expression protected under the First Amendment. For More info:

http://www.AfghanInjustice.com
(pictures of today's Washington Demonstration courtesy of Polaris Images)

http://www.AfghanInjustice.com/politics.htm