Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

a) Assume you all know why this demonstration was held - 4 women were brutally
slain in Afghanistan this week because of the simple fact that they were women.

b) I had misgivings about why the demonstration would be held in the
Bagh-i-Zanana (a secluded private garden for women) because in the West we are
use demonstrations to garner public attention in very public areas, however,
given security issues, and the history of high school girl demonstrators being
machine-gunned down under the Soviets, I can understand why these women chose to
be inside the walls of the garden.


c) However, they could not get permission to use the garden from the Ministry
of Women's affairs. ...Huh? First of all, why do women need permission to
express themselves in their own space? This contradicts the basic tenets of
civil society. Secondly, why wasn't the Ministry of Women's Affairs leading and
supporting this protest? collusion or incompetence?




If you care and want to do something about this backlash that is hitting us
like a tsunami, please

1. Contact your country representative/embassy in Afghanistan and ask for
accountability on how your tax dollars are being spent in Afghanistan. No more
empty rhetoric on 'national programs and policy' - what are results on the
ground? Include the declaration below. Go to your government's website and
get the contact info.
2. Send letters directly to President Karzai at the Arg, Kabul, Afghanistan.
Let's make our voices count.
3. Contact the real leaders of our women's movement, Orzala Ashraf,
orzala@yahoo.com or Palwasha Hassan, pal_rd@hotmail.com for more information on
how you can help (donations, donations, donations). See their declaration
below. Many thanks to the incomparable Sadiqa Basiri of AWN, Sarah Kamal of
UNIFEM, and Corey Levine of UNAMA for their immediate help and support in
getting these messages out.

Declaration of Afghan Women NGOs


5th May, 2005


Whereas consideration of Islamic Sharia, the protection of basic human
dignity, and the Afghan Constitution make the Afghan state responsible to
protect the rights, property, and dignity of its citizens;


Whereas binding international conventions further oblige the Afghan state
to protect the fundamental rights of men and women;


Whereas harmful outdated customs and beliefs in Afghanistan have resulted
in acts of violence against women throughout the past catastrophic decades
in the country;

Therefore institutions that work to defend human rights, associations that
protect women?s rights, and members of Afghanistan?s civil society present
this declaration as a proclamation of our grief and sorrow over of brutal
killing of 22-year-old Amina in Badakhshan Province, the rape and killing
of three women NGO-workers in Baghlan Province and the murder of a woman
in Pulikhumri city. With a deep sense of concern for the threats to
women?s dignity, honour, and lives in this difficult period, we call for
the punishment of the perpetuators of these crimes against women and
humanity, and demands the following actions from the government of
Afghanistan:

1. We urge the elected president of Afghanistan to focus his urgent and
serious personal attention to the issues mentioned above;
2. We insist that the judicial system of Afghanistan, as the institution
responsible for justice in the country:
a. Expand and extend the reach and enforcement of the judicial system to the
rural areas of the country in order to prevent similar actions from happening in
the future;
b. Convict the merciless perpetrators of Amina?s murder;
c. Investigate the murder and rape of the other women immediately and
urgently convict the criminals responsible in a public trial to ensure that the
consequences of such actions are clear to others.
3. The government of Afghanistan, as a responsible and accountable
institution, has to prohibit propaganda against NGOs so that attacks and assault
against the workers of nongovernmental organizations are prevented;
4. Considering the budget that is allocated for national security, the
government of Afghanistan must work and attain better prepared and more expert
security for its citizens.
5. The clerics and Islamic scholars of the country, in accordance with their
role as protectors of Sharia, must thwart the actions and movements that sully
the name of Islam and Muslims.

As a consortium of concerned Afghan women, we denounce all actions and
activities that perpetuate and promote violence against women.

Hear my words
and the depth of meaning
contained in them:

Thank you Tilly.
Thank you to
all people
everywhere
who continue
to struggle
for freedom.

As I sit
here
I ponder...

perhaps,
in my lifetime
or
the lifetime
of my children,
enough
bravehearts
will stand
shoulder
to
shoulder
so that
we
will have
reached
a
critical mass
for peaceful coexistence.


Tilly,
Do we have your permission to copy and paste your words (above)
calling for action into messages that we can forward on? Or, is there another place that we can direct our networks to?

Namaste
Whitebird Sings

Tilly ~ the front page of this morning's New York Times carries a story about the appointment of Hashim Al-Shibli as Iraq's new Human Rights Minister...

What do you know about him?

Also, ...still waiting to hear more about all the ways we can help. ...and, can we pass on what you wrote (see above)...

Most of all please know that I am keeping you in my prayers.

Dohiya (peace)
WB

Hello again Tilly... a second read -- a little slower this time, and I realize that Al-Shibli rejected the appointment... after he learned about it because of a television report. ...He sounds though like someone you might work with.. he says one of the reasons that he rejected the appointment is that he believes in democracy...

...seems to me (as a person standing at a distance) that if the NGOs aren't already working with him... that they need to find out more... His background/history in the country, what are his interests -- for himself and for his country (vs. public positions people take) and what influence does he have that he can leverage?

Be Well
WB

Hi, I have been in Bulgaria for a week. Sorry for the delay in responding.

Amazing how modern Sofia looks after 3 months in Kabul.

I will forward the email that contained the above words to you. It is meant to be passed on to everyone you know.

I don't know anything about Hashim Al-Shibli - is he in Iraq or Afganistan?

Down with the flu, so am hitting the sack. More later,
t

Hello Tilly

Good to hear from you... but sorry to hear you are not feeling well. I sympathize with you -- as I have been battling a virus for about 3 weeks that keeps mutating into some new challenge.

Thank you for your permission to pass on your message posted here -- I look forward to receiving your email version -- with any updates -- that I will then pass on.

As for Hashim Al-Shibli, he is a Sunni -- a member of the National Democratic Party and the former justice minister under the Iraqi Governing Council. The media reported him as saying that he did not want to serve because he does not want to be identified with sectarian politics. He said he felt that he had been appointed because he was Sunni... but that he does not just represent the Sunni -- he claims that his party is non-sectarian.



As I watch what is happening around the world right now -- it concerns me that so many NGOs are being forced out of so many countries... or so it appears to me as I sit here in my home in the West... I wonder what it is that we can do to ensure that the work of humanitarian organizations is not suspended!"


Namaste and Dohiya
WB

More news this week that I am sure many or all of you have been following -- the abduction of Clementina Cantoni -- abducted in Afghanistan.

A friend emailed me this morning about Clementina (see part of the message below) -- Ayesha lives in Pakistan near the Afghan border and as many of you know, I have recently been in contact with her and other of my friends about the possibility of doing aid work in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, as we know from Tilly -- what we read in the media is correct... the situation in that country is getting worse.

Many of the people I know who are working with NGOs are being pulled out -- they are reluctant to leave -- but their presence at this time is putting themselves and the people they work with in danger.

We heard from Tilly about 4 women whose bodies were found by the side of the road in Afghanistan... they had been raped and then murdered. Notes were pinned to their bodies warning NGOs to pull out.

The story of these 4 women and of Clementina is being repeated daily along with other equally heart-rending atrocities.

Many of us want to find a way to help. One way is to support the work of organizations out there from Human Rights Watch to Amnesty that you can add your voice to so that collectively we find solutions. We can not abandon Clementina or Tilly, we can not abandon the people of Afghanistan...

That said, we know that we need to find a way to help that does not further endanger any of their lives.

How do we help Tilly?

I put this question to anyone reading this who is doing work -- or knows of work -- that needs our collective voices, please do not hesitate to contact me, so that I can pass on the information and so that together we can continue to network for action that leads to peace.

Dohiya (peace)
Janette
aka Whitebird Sings



----- Original Message -----
From: Ayesha Rahman
To: glasgow@distributel.net
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 7:08 AM


Dear Janette

.... .... Situation in Afghanistan is getting worsened. As you know our sister Clementina Cantoni ,who was an aid agency worker was abducted. She works for CARE one of the leading aid agencies that are trying their best to prevail peace and harmony in that war striken land. Lets pray my dear friend that our sister be well and safe and gets her freedom soon. Tell all our sisters all over the globe to join hands and pray for Clementina.

Lots of wishes and love to you
Ash

Hi, and thanks for your words.

The main thing we can do is to get the word out, urge and demand that well allocated (and supervised) funds are sent to Afghanistan and have good intentions – being Buddhist, I believe we are all one and if we put our intentions towards peace in the world it will come to pass. Although what has happened to Clementina is dreadful, it is not an isolated case – it is publicized internationally because she is a westerner. From all reports here in Kabul, she is OK and her captors are demanding release of their leader in exchange for setting her free. We are all praying for her, including the hundreds of widows that she worked with. Hundreds of women held a demonstration protesting her abduction – not a common sight to see Afghan women in public expressing themselves - a positive outcome of the abduction. The people of Afghanistan, and especially the women, are suffering daily their lives disrupted by violence, demonstrations and inequities beyond imagination. Afghan children are being kidnapped and held for ransom, or trafficked. On Wednesday, 3 Afghans working for an international aid organization were killed, yesterday 6 other Afghans working for the same organizations and the local commander were bringing their bodies back for burial and they were attacked and killed. Iraq has the limelight and, not to make light of their horrors in any way, this means that what is actually happening in Afghanistan is not reported or not reported to the degree that it should be. Australia has pulled its volunteers, who do wonderful work with local NGOs, out of Afghanistan. Our Afghan staff, who are devoted to promoting civil society in Afghanistan, are devastated by the constant news of their countrymen killing one another. We were to travel to the provinces to assess NGOs to bring into our program as Civil Society Support Centers and have had to cancel all travel – this is discouraging and disheartening to our Afghan colleagues. Those of us that are here on the ground are confined to quarters, which means that we cannot go out and do anything to try to stop the horrors.

We should all talk to our governments, write to the government of Afghanistan and support them in their efforts to bring peace. It is not an ideal government, but it does seek peace for its people. My Deputy is Pakistani and Pashtu, and is educating me on the tribal conflicts – the difference between religion and culture, which is what is creating the clashes. The situation here should be looked at historically in order to stop the violence, otherwise all efforts will be in vain. We cannot impose pre-packaged solutions to problems we do not understand for this only makes the situation worse. Of course, the US military at Quantanamo Bay prison and their desecration of the Quran further agitates the situation. Although the article was retracted by Newsweek, none believe that it did not happen, including civilian Americans that are here.

I have been up since 4:30 a.m. listening to CNN and BBC – long bla blas about economies around the world, China pirating western goods … it is all about the money. N. Korea and Iran developing nuclear weapons – the west, with at America at the helm, won’t do anything much about N. Korea for there is no economic return on the effort; Iran, on the other hand, has oil – need I say more? Our drive for oil (money/power) is not only creating mass human horrors (the allies would not have done anything in Afghanistan were it not for the proposed oil pipeline) it is also creating horrors for our physical world. Americans watched sink holes appear in Florida because the water was being sucked out of the aquifers – does it not seem reasonable to assume that sucking all that oil out of the earth may be causing the earth quakes that are devastating communities, and mostly poor communities? We need trees to refresh and replenish the oxygen that we depend upon for life, and yet we are cutting forests down at an alarming rate, for what? Money/power. Fellow sentient beings are reaching extinction through man’s drive for more. Can we possibly believe that this is right in any way? The indigenous people, the poor, the women and children do not benefit from any of this rather they suffer the consequences of the drive for money/power. We cannot look at Afghanistan and Iraq as separate for they are only a part of, an indication of, the worst of what is going on around the world as a whole. Look at Africa! N. Korea is having another food shortage (as they spend billions on nuclear weapon development) – Americans throw away more food per year than it would take to feed the world’s hungry. 8 billion dollars “misplaced” by the oil for food program – imagine what that could do for the world’s poor and hungry – of which, incidentally, the majority are women and children. We, the women of the world, must join together to do something about the worsening world conditions. Until we do so, and as long as we continue to accept a patriarchal society whose main goal is their own personal advantage through any means they see fit (and yes, I know the rationalizations), we will only experience continued worsening conditions. Until the men of the world that do think and have a universal conscience come together to protest and influence the others, we will only experience continued worsening conditions.

Russia is happy because Vodka consumption is up by several percentage points – this is a good thing? In what possible way can this be good? Increased domestic violence and desperation decreased personal growth – more bucks/power for someone. Liquor production around the world is on the increase, a real money producer. Poppy eradication programs destroying the livelihood of millions. This is a real conundrum for me. Perhaps it is because the pharmaceutical companies have not yet found a way to control it to their financial benefit. Demands for morphine and other drugs from opium go unmet. Perhaps as the militaries of the developed world need more morphine for their wounded poppy cultivation will be encouraged.

You ask what we can do? Let us not focus our intentions so narrowly as to miss the mark. We must change the way we think and influence the way others think and we must do this every waking moment of our lives!

the horrors of the world must be met with equal and opposite force - we are the law of physics! We are the universal truth.

let our power meet the destructive forces head on and dissolve them with bending like a willow and in t'ai chi mastery using aggression to nullify itself.

So much energy in the world. It can not be destroyed, but it can and must be transformed to heal the gaping chasms that rock our equilibrium.

Tilly, you, in the middle of chaos, have a network of NGOs to hang on to. We, who are not so affiliated, must open-handedly create our affiliation and make it heard.

Janette is organizing us and you, Tilly, are inspiring us.
(and it's not only women - there are many men who walk along side)

resurgence of committment!
let us not become complacent.

thank you for stirring up our consciousness

judih

"This universe is a dream that all six billion of us are collaboratively dreaming up into materialization together. When we realize this, we can put our lucidity together in a way where we can co-creatively dream a much more grace-filled universe into incarnation. This is nothing other than an evolutionary quantom leap in human consciousness, unimaginable until now." Paul Levy

Many men, Judih! But ... look around and see who is creating the horrors. I make not light of men's efforts and encourage those who think and care to change humanity's mind.

Peace,

t

Tilly and judih,

...beautifully put.

it is good to hear from you Tilly...
I will pass along your words to my networks.

both of you have written from powerful and passionate places here this day...

thank you for your hearts.
thank you for your words.

as for spreading the word --
i know this to be true
that
the word is getting out...

and i know too that many many many of us
are rising up
and we are standing together

~~~~~~...

we inhabit different corners of the world we 3...
and yet it seems to me that we (along with many
others)
share the mission
of being emissaries
of what is and what can be

with every ounce of energy I have
I will continue to work for peace

...standing alongside whoever is on the same path

I am glad to be walking with each of you
if only for a little while...

Following the stream of thought that each of you wonderful strong women have expressed here, I in turn place here the words of Sissela Bok who wrote, quoting Gandhi:

Everyone can carve out, should they so wish, "zones of peace" in their own lives -- territories where every effort will be made to banish violence and untruth. By so doing, one will be preparing the ground for "the world of tomorrow" which "will be, must be, a society based on non-violence. It may seem a distant goal, an unpractical utopia. But it is not in the least unobtainable, since it can be worked from here and now. An individual can adopt the way of life of the future -- the non-violent way -- without having to wait for others to do so. And if an individual can do it, cannot whole groups of individuals? Whole nations?"

Namaste and Dohiya
to you both...
So it is.

Janette
aka Whitebird Sings

the headline of this morning's NEW YORK TIMES:

May 20, 2005

In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths

By TIM GOLDEN

Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.

The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.

Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar's face.

"Come on, drink!" the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. "Drink!"

At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.

"Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.

Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.

The story of Mr. Dilawar's brutal death at the Bagram Collection Point - and that of another detainee, Habibullah, who died there six days earlier in December 2002 - emerge from a nearly 2,000-page confidential file of the Army's criminal investigation into the case, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

Like a narrative counterpart to the digital images from Abu Ghraib, the Bagram file depicts young, poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse. The harsh treatment, which has resulted in criminal charges against seven soldiers, went well beyond the two deaths.

In some instances, testimony shows, it was directed or carried out by interrogators to extract information. In others, it was punishment meted out by military police guards. Sometimes, the torment seems to have been driven by little more than boredom or cruelty, or both.

In sworn statements to Army investigators, soldiers describe one female interrogator with a taste for humiliation stepping on the neck of one prostrate detainee and kicking another in the genitals. They tell of a shackled prisoner being forced to roll back and forth on the floor of a cell, kissing the boots of his two interrogators as he went. Yet another prisoner is made to pick plastic bottle caps out of a drum mixed with excrement and water as part of a strategy to soften him up for questioning.

The Times obtained a copy of the file from a person involved in the investigation who was critical of the methods used at Bagram and the military's response to the deaths.

Although incidents of prisoner abuse at Bagram in 2002, including some details of the two men's deaths, have been previously reported, American officials have characterized them as isolated problems that were thoroughly investigated. And many of the officers and soldiers interviewed in the Dilawar investigation said the large majority of detainees at Bagram were compliant and reasonably well treated.

"What we have learned through the course of all these investigations is that there were people who clearly violated anyone's standard for humane treatment," said the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Larry Di Rita. "We're finding some cases that were not close calls."

Yet the Bagram file includes ample testimony that harsh treatment by some interrogators was routine and that guards could strike shackled detainees with virtual impunity. Prisoners considered important or troublesome were also handcuffed and chained to the ceilings and doors of their cells, sometimes for long periods, an action Army prosecutors recently classified as criminal assault.

Some of the mistreatment was quite obvious, the file suggests. Senior officers frequently toured the detention center, and several of them acknowledged seeing prisoners chained up for punishment or to deprive them of sleep. Shortly before the two deaths, observers from the International Committee of the Red Cross specifically complained to the military authorities at Bagram about the shackling of prisoners in "fixed positions," documents show.

Even though military investigators learned soon after Mr. Dilawar's death that he had been abused by at least two interrogators, the Army's criminal inquiry moved slowly. Meanwhile, many of the Bagram interrogators, led by the same operations officer, Capt. Carolyn A. Wood, were redeployed to Iraq and in July 2003 took charge of interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison. According to a high-level Army inquiry last year, Captain Wood applied techniques there that were "remarkably similar" to those used at Bagram.

Last October, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command concluded that there was probable cause to charge 27 officers and enlisted personnel with criminal offenses in the Dilawar case ranging from dereliction of duty to maiming and involuntary manslaughter. Fifteen of the same soldiers were also cited for probable criminal responsibility in the Habibullah case.

So far, only the seven soldiers have been charged, including four last week. No one has been convicted in either death. Two Army interrogators were also reprimanded, a military spokesman said. Most of those who could still face legal action have denied wrongdoing, either in statements to investigators or in comments to a reporter.

"The whole situation is unfair," Sgt. Selena M. Salcedo, a former Bagram interrogator who was charged with assaulting Mr. Dilawar, dereliction of duty and lying to investigators, said in a telephone interview. "It's all going to come out when everything is said and done."

With most of the legal action pending, the story of abuses at Bagram remains incomplete. But documents and interviews reveal a striking disparity between the findings of Army investigators and what military officials said in the aftermath of the deaths.

Military spokesmen maintained that both men had died of natural causes, even after military coroners had ruled the deaths homicides. Two months after those autopsies, the American commander in Afghanistan, then-Lt. Gen. Daniel K. McNeill, said he had no indication that abuse by soldiers had contributed to the two deaths. The methods used at Bagram, he said, were "in accordance with what is generally accepted as interrogation techniques."

[...this article continues on with alot more detail! -- you can find it at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/inter ... nted=print ]




WE MUST RISE UP IN THE WEST... and collectively say -- THIS DOES NOT DEFINE WHO WE ARE... I am Canadian... and I am prepared to stand with whoever is ready to work to stop these unspeakable acts against humanity!... violence begets violence! ENOUGH!!