by Rod Nordland
5.See The Jihad Against Women, from p. 253, for a fuller discussion of this issue.
6.On several occasions during Afghanistan’s civil war, mujahideen had also tried to destroy the Bamiyan Buddhas, blasting away at them with artillery and defiling ancient Buddhist shrines nearby.
7.Matthew A. Goldstein, Politics and the Life Sciences, vol. 21, issue 2 (2002): pp. 28–37, “The Biological Roots of Heat-of-passion Crimes and Honour Killings.”
8.Thomas Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Prince ton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010).
9.See also the 1977 British documentary Death of a Princess, about a Saudi princess executed for sex out of wedlock, on orders of her grandfather, discussed in a Harvard White Paper, available at http://pirp.harvard.edu/pubs_pdf/white/white-p83-9.pdf.
In a 2009 case, asylum was granted another Saudi princess in Britain on grounds that she would be subjected to death by stoning for having committed adultery. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8158 576.stm.
10.Department of Justice, Canada, Monograph, Jan. 7, 2015, “Preliminary Examination of So-called ‘Honour Killings’ in Canada.”
11.Only 38 percent of the population over the age of fifteen can read and write. CIA World Factbook, www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/af.html.
12.United Nations Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan, Commission of Human Rights, 2006 report, http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UND OC/GEN/G06/108/09/PDF/G0610809.pdf?OpenElement. “The current trends in violence against women in Afghanistan cannot be solely reduced to culture and tradition without consideration of the conflict and post-conflict situation” and “Moreover, the limits the traditional normative framework placed on the exercise of male power over women, reigning in mere arbitrariness, have to a large extent been washed away by 23 years of boundless war, which has disintegrated the social fabric of the society. When the rule of power, be it in the hands of State or non-State actors, replaces the rule of law, the highest price is paid by those with the least power, particularly women and children. In this context, many actors deform Islam and culture from a source of justice and fairness into a justification for their tyrannical acts against women.”
13.This is true in Pakistan as well, particularly in the North-West Frontier Provinces, which are populated predominantly by Pashtun tribals who closely identify with the Pashtun plurality in Afghanistan. There are also high rates of honor killings in other sectors of Pakistani society, arguably as bad as or worse than in Afghanistan.
14.It was Gulnaz’s word against the man’s, and he maintained it was consensual sex, not rape, even though she was fifteen at the time and had been bound hand and foot during the episode. The judge believed the man.
15.Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times, Dec. 2, 2011, p. A1, “For Afghan Woman, Justice Runs into Unforgiving Wall of Custom,” www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/world/asia/forafghan-woman-justice-runs-into-the-static-wall-of-custom.html.
16.European Union External Action, “Factsheet,” Mar. 8, 2015, “EU Support to Promoting Women Leaders,” www.eeas.europa.eu/factsheets/docs/150308_01_factsheet_promoting_women_leaders_en.pdf.
17.Video highlights of the 2014 World Values Network Gala are at https://youtu.be/YnxEEeuC2RM.
18.Human Rights Watch, World Report 2015, Rwanda, www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/rwanda.
8: THE IRRECONCILABLES
1.
2.Amina’s case is discussed in more detail in chapter 3.
3.Siddiqa’s case is discussed in more detail in chapter 3.
4.Khadija’s case is discussed in more detail in chapter 2.
9: BIRDS IN A CAGE
1.The word hejab is used in Afghanistan to refer to the full-length black robes that cover everything but a woman’s face or sometimes everything but the eyes; in other places this would be called an abaya or a chador, while the term hejab or hijab normally refers to an Islamic head scarf for women.
2.
3.“His Juliet thinks she is pregnant with her Romeo’s child. So much for the good news.” See New York Times, June 8, 2014, p. A14, www.ny times.com/2014/06/08/world/asia/forafghan-lovers-joy-is-brief-ending-in-arrest.html.
4.An Afghan National Police district is similar to a precinct in a big American city; Kabul has sixteen of them.
5.Embassy of Afghanistan, Washington, D.C., press release, “Afghanistan Ministry Designates First Female Police Chief in the Country,” www.embassyofafghanistan.org/article/afghan-ministry-of-interior-designates-first-female-police-chief-in-the-country. See also International Security Assistance Force, press release, July 7, 2014, “Afghan Police Academy graduates 51 female officers,” www.isaf.nato.int/article/isaf-news/isaf-generals-attend-female-anp-academy-graduation.html.
6.Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times, Mar. 2, 2015, “Afghan Policewomen Struggle Against Culture,” www.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/world/asia/afghan-policewomen-struggle-against-culture.html.
7.The website Good Afghan News, Mar. 10, 2010, shows Shafiqa Quraishi receiving the International Women of Courage Award from Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama. See www.goodafghannews.com/2010/03/10/shukria-asil-and-shafiqa-quraishi-of-afghanistan-at-the-the-2010-international-women-of-courage-awards-event.
8.See p. 281 for more on Jamila Bayaz’s case. She was dismissed from her post as police chief in 2015.
10: RELUCTANT CELEBRITIES
1.Most other organizations running women’s shelters in Afghanistan, including the UN Women organization, shun publicity no matter how horrendous and hopeless the cases they handle.
2.Ms. Ghazanfar’s main point was that violence against women in Afghanistan was a minor problem, no different from violence against women in developed countries, and that the EVAW law was doing a terrific job of improving the situation even though there had been little need for improvement, and so on in that vein.
3.New York Times, May 19, 2014, p. A10, “Afghan Lovers’ Plight Shaking Up Lives of Those Left in Their Wake,” www.nytimes.com/2014/05/19/world/asia/afghan-lovers-plight-shaking-up-the-lives-of-those-left-in-their-wake.html.
4.President Karzai did give an interview to freelancer Elizabeth Rubin for the New York Times Magazine in 2009 (Aug. 9, “Karzai in His Labyrinth”), but not to the newspaper itself. See www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/magazine/09Karzai-t.html. Mr. Karzai was finally interviewed by the paper on June 16, 2015, p. A4, “Karzai, Vowing That He’s Done, Discusses His Afghan Legacy,” www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/world/asia/ex-president-karzai-vows-he-is-out-of-afghanistans-politics.html.
5.As those efforts were abandoned, in my case, and overturned in Azam Ahmed’s case, using the government’s own legal procedures, the Times elected not to provoke the government by making a public issue out of their efforts. In my case American diplomats had persuaded government officials that expelling the paper’s Kabul bureau chief, which I was at the time, would be unwise. Mr. Karzai later personally approved Matthew Rosenberg’s expulsion.
6.New York Times, Aug. 21, 2015, p. A4, “Calling Article ‘Divisive,’ Afghanistan Orders Expulsion of Times Correspondent,” www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/world/asia/afghanistan-orders-expulsion-of-new-york-times-correspondent.html.
7.A couple typical Facebook pages (most are in Dari): www.facebook.com/pages/Campaign-for-Supporting-Afghan-Lovers/1498540123693615 and http://on.fb.me/1BaiRht.
8.June 11, 2014.
9.Zakia and Ali, in order to qualify for asylum, would first have to apply for refugee status in a neighboring country (or any country they could manage to reach). Then they would have to demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution, based on at least one recognized criterion: persecution because of political, racial, ethnic, or religious reasons or membership in a persecuted social group. They qualified on four of those criteria: ethnic and religious, since opposition to their wedding was based on the fact that she was Tajik and he was Hazara and she Sunni and he Shia; racial, because Hazaras are racially distinct from Tajiks; and membership in a persecuted social group, in
this case, Afghans who insist on choosing their own mates. So they would probably be processed fairly quickly and granted asylum in one of those neighboring countries, which could be India, Pakistan, or Tajikistan; it could not be Iran, which prohibits new refugee-asylum applications.
Once they were in a neighboring country and registered as refugees, it would technically be up to UNHCR to decide which country was most appropriate for the couple’s resettlement, and American officials had insisted that a more appropriate country would be somewhere like Sweden, which has generous language and literacy programs as well as welfare support for refugees who are illiterate. In the United States, it is sink or swim for refugees; even legal immigrants get only a couple thousand dollars and a volunteer sponsor to show them around. The couple’s situation was different, though, in that they had willing sponsors in America and ones with substantial means, which few refugees normally have.
10.United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Humanitarian Parole,” contains an outline of the law on humanitarian parole at www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/humanitarian-parole.
11.The Grossman Burn Center, press release, Aug. 31, 2010, “Mutilated Afghan girl comes to L.A. for treatment,” www.grossmanburncenter.com/mutilated-afghan-girl-comes-to-la-for-treatment.php.
11: BACK TO THE HINDU KUSH
1.
2.
3.The singer’s official website, www.ahmadzahir.com/sub/biography.html, includes an account of his assassination. A New York Times account on Mar. 20, 2003, by Amy Waldman has a differing version of Zahir’s death. See www.nytimes.com/2003/03/20/world/kabul-journal-the-afghan-elvis-lives-24-years-after-his-death.html.
12: MULLAH MOHAMMAD JAN
1.BBC News, “Afghan ‘Romeo and Juliet’ Still Fear for Their Lives,” Aug. 11, 2014, online video at www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-28662822.
2.Azam Ahmed and Matthew Rosenberg, New York Times, Jan. 19, 2014, p. A8, “Deadly Attack at Kabul Restaurant Hints at Changing Climate for Foreigners,” www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/world/asia/afghanistan-restaurant-attack.html.
3.International Organization for Migration, World Migration chart, 2014, at www.iom.int/world-migration. See also the website of Statistics Canada, National Household Survey, 2011, www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=PR&Code1=0 1&Data=Count&SearchText=Langley&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR =01&A1=Ethnic%20origin&B1=All&Custom=&TABID=1.
4.
5.Ali had taken out a ringtone subscription with the cell-phone carrier; he paid Etisalat a fee of fifty afghanis to join their ringtone plan, to download unlimited tunes, and then five afghanis (about ten U.S. cents) to renew the plan each month. The menus were voice-guided, so he could work his way through them without needing to read.
6.
7.Technically this is not a mortgage, because the loan of money at interest is considered un-Islamic and most devout Afghans will not do it. Instead the creditor gets the use of the land and any profit from it, which potentially could earn the creditor as much as or more than interest would, but that would depend on how well they worked the land and how good the harvest was, so it is considered a religiously acceptable workaround. Once the debtor repaid the principal, the land would return to him without interest charges.
8.A Western mind might shudder at the thought of such widespread corruption, but by and large the Afghans do not see things that way. Bribery is such a part of public life that most uneducated people without connections would assume that was the only way to try to influence events. For them it is more of a way of life than a criminal act.
9.
10.
11.Afghanistan ranks as 172nd-worst out of 177 countries studied in 2014, while Tajikistan was 162nd. See Transparency International infographic, Corruption Perceptions Index, www.transparency.org/cpi2014/infographic.
12.Matthew Rosenberg, New York Times, Mar. 17, 2014, p. A3, “Facts Elusive in Kabul Death of Swedish Reporter,” www.nytimes.com/2014/03/17/world/asia/facts-elusive-in-kabul-death-of-swedish-reporter.html.
13.We were unable to determine the source of this verse.
14.
13: IN THE LAND OF THE BOTTOM-FEEDERS
1.The State Department cable, unearthed by Wikileaks, was published on-line by the Guardian at www.guardian.co.uk/world/usembassy-cables-documents/248969.
2.In addition, the businessman, who spoke in confidence because he still has relatives living in Tajikistan, was forced by the tax collector to pay his taxes into the collector’s private bank account and then was later charged with tax evasion for not having paid the taxes to the government; when he complained, he was charged with extortion and defamation as well. “They are the most insanely greedy people I have ever seen,” he said. “They make the Afghans look like the Swiss.” He managed to bribe his way over the border, abandoning his investments. I met him a few months after his escape.
3.Eurasia.net online news report, Aug. 25, 2011, www.eurasianet.org/node/64092. The leaked State Department cable can be found at https://wikileaks.org/cable/2006/12/06DUSHANBE2191.html.
4.Piedras Negras, Mexico; Doha, Qatar; and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, all have bigger flags than Tajikistan. See www.guinnessworldrecords.com/worldrecords/largest-flag-flown.
5.Under Tajikistan’s laws “Refugee Status Determinations” are not made by UNHCR, as is normally done in most countries, but rather by the Tajik government, in effect, operating through the Rights and Prosperity NGO under the pretense that the organization is independent of the government, which it is not. That allows the Tajik authorities to greatly limit how many refugees are given legal status, and it also provides them with much greater opportunities for extortion and abuse of asylum seekers and refugees.
6.UNHCR officials were aware of the problem with refugee applications in Tajikistan, said Babar Baloch, a spokesman. “In some instances asylum seekers may face harassment, arbitrary detention, and deportation. We have raised these concerns with the Tajik authorities in line with UNHCR’s mandate and remain actively engaged to support Tajikistan in applying asylum procedures according to the 1951 Refugee Convention and within the adopted Tajik refugee law.”
14: A DOG WITH NO NAME
1.Takfiri is an epithet used to refer to extremist Sunnis who accuse Shias of being apostates and not true Muslims. Besides the Taliban, other takfiris include the Islamic State, or ISIS, and Al-Qaeda extremists.
2.Afghanistan had a birthrate of 3.88 percent in 2014. See CIA World Factbook, Afghanistan, available online at www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/af.html.
3.See the website of Development and Support of Afghan Women and Children Organization at http://dsawco.org/eng.
4.New York Times, Mar. 9, 2015, p. A7, “Back in Afghanistan Modern Romeo and Juliet Face Grave Risks,” www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/world/back-in-afghanistan-modern-romeo-and-juliet-face-grave-risks.html.
5.New York Times, Oct. 20, 2014, p. A6, “Bartered Away at Age 5, Now Trying to Escape to a Life She Chooses,” www.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/world/asia/times-video-presents-to-kill-a-sparrow.html. This is not the same Soheila as the girl from Kabul who eloped to Pakistan, discussed earlier in this chapter. Both use only one name.
6.Her family considered her married at age five, but consummation of the marriage would not take place until after the wedding ceremony, when she had reached legal age; in many families that would happen after puberty, although in Soheila’s case it was to be at age sixteen, the country’s legal age of consent. That also enabled the family to deny in court that she had been illegally married at age five. And it guaranteed the other side that she could not back out of the arrangement when she got older, because in the eyes of Islam, in their view, she was already legally married.
7.Healthy life expectancy in Afghanistan is 48.5 years for men, 46 years for women, according to the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Index for 2014 at http://hdr.undp.org/en/con tent/human-development-index-hdi.
8.Center for Investigati
ve Reporting, To Kill a Sparrow, video at http://cironline.org/feature/kill-sparrow.
9.Nobody ever thought to show Soheila the Iranian filmmaker’s video; apparently miffed by restrictions imposed on her filming, Ms. Soleimani left any actual mention of Women for Afghan Women out of it, even though the group had saved both Soheila and her husband from prison, won her legal case, sheltered her for four years during threats and attacks, and finally made it possible for them to marry officially and formally. The young woman first saw it, downloaded on an iPhone, when I interviewed her in WAW’s offices. At first she was entranced and interested, though stunned to see how young she’d been when the filming started in the shelter—realizing how much of her youth she’d spent there, protected from her father and brother but not really free. She watched from behind a veil pulled mostly across her face, for modesty and in an attempt to hide her emotions. There is a very touching scene early on when her father, Rahimullah, having put her in prison, along with her young child, with his bogus accusations of bigamy and adultery, comes to visit her there. While playing with his grandson, then a toddler, he talks fulsomely about how Islam decrees that daughters should obey their fathers, who are the only ones who can choose their mates for them. As he plays with her son, it’s as if she were seeing what might have been if her father had something more than misogyny in his heart, and she wept. Later her father demanded that she kill her son if she wanted to reconcile with the family. Then her half brother Aminullah appears on the screen vowing to kill her. She pushed the phone aside in disgust and refused to watch any more.