Sometimes the most vicious attack on a people’s rights are the most subtle. While Vlad has in sadly much gory detail written about attacks on women to enforce barbaric policies, this next story I feel in an important way is considerably more serious.
Notice that I did not use the adjective ‘primitive’ to describe the Taliban’s treatment of women as frankly, there are many if not all societies that predate the Taliban and indeed predate Islam altogether where women had more value to society as well as power. Ancient Rome Greece and Egypt all have records of powerful women and while they may not overall have had the rights of men, certainly life would be better for them than it is under ‘true Islamic states’.
Now the story from Hindustan Times:
The Pakistani Taliban in the troubled Khyber tribal region have warned authorities not to issue national identity cards to women, saying the practice is un-Islamic.
Omar Farooq, the commander of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan in Khyber Agency, warned the National Database and Registration Authority that its offices would be attacked if it issued identity cards to women.
Farooq told reporters on phone from an unknown location that making identity cards for women went against Islamic rules. The Taliban will not allow women to obtain these cards, he said.
He also warned women that they would have to face the consequences if they went to NADRA offices to get themselves registered for the identity cards.
The Taliban in Swat valley of the North Western Frontier Province and parts of the restive tribal have banned girls education and barred women from visiting markets unless they are accompanied by male relatives.
This story quite literally seeks to officially remove the actual status of women as human beings by the state. Women will not be able to have identity cards symbolically of course meaning they can have no identity as individuals but practically, no access to the state whatsoever. Imagine yourselves with no legal papers. I feel this story is considerably more important than the western media does clearly as there appears to be no reports on it whatsoever.
I humbly beg you all to please forward this link to the original source on this, the Hindustan times to any and all media you may know. This cannot go unnoticed and keep in mind. if Obama is to be taken at his word, these are the people he suggested reaching out to.
