Malalai Kakar – Warrior, Champion of Women, Our Khadijah

Lt. Col. Malalai Kakar

Martyred during Ramadan, 28 September 2008/1429 A.H.

On Sunday morning, Lt. Col. Malalai Kakar, the highest-ranking policewoman in Afghanistan was martyred in Kandahar. Mrs Kakar was a champion of women in Afghanistan and an example for women around the world as she worked tirelessly to combat drugs and the abuse of women and children. She fought for what was Islamic and what was true and right, not what the religious authorities or the Taliban decreed. She was for us who knew of her work and her jihad, one of the many women of Khadijah’s Jihad.

I never had the opportunity to meet Mrs Kakar, but through friends who knew her, I feel blessed. To only be separated by a thread, despite there being an ocean and a continent between us, brings some comfort as she joins the ranks of the remarkable women who we will never truly know, but who we will always love and admire for their grace, dignity, and the courage with which they stood before their assassins. May she find her rightful place in Paradise and may her murderers find their rightful place in the wrath of G-d.

O Allah!

Make right for me my faith,

which is the foundation of my life.

Make right for me the world in which I live.

Make right for me the eternal home to which I will return.

Make life for me an increase in all that is good and make death a comfort for me from all that is evil.

(The Holy Qur’an)

(Originally written for Jemima Jerome)

Cluecake News 8.8.08

So this is a new phenomena that I’m going to test-out. A sort of daily round-up of interesting stories from the Islamic World. And so we begin…

Rape, Sex Abuse of Afghan Girls Continues

You want a zina crime, do you? You want to punish someone, Taliban? Find the people who are committing these atrocities and kill them!

But oh, I forgot, sort of difficult to stone yourselves isn’t it? Yes… hmm… well, I guess we’ll just have to go think of some more ways to emulate a non-existent precedent in Islam when it comes to gender relations.

More on the Taliban…

Taliban Metes Out its Own Form of Justice in Afghanistan

I love this. The biggest export the Taliban had during its reign of terror was sex trafficking. Yes, that’s right SEX TRAFFICKING and they’re murdering women who they accuse of running a prostitution ring.

God they are such imbecilic hicks.

Nigerian Advises Against Having 86 Wives

I don’t think it needs to be noted that Mohammed Bello Abubakar is driving thru life at 20 times the legal limit. In the Shari’a it says that you may have 4 wives and ONLY if you can treat them equally. This is of course a way of deterring people from taking as many wives suit their fancy (read: Wife #1 gets old and sexually unappealing and possibly shrill.) Only the Prophet Muhammad was able to have more than one wife because he was, of course, a Prophet and thus capable of having more than one wife responsibly.

Iranians Suspend Death by Stoning

Oh how exciting! Iran suspends death by stoning! Now I fully appreciate the fact that the Shari’a says that adultery is punishable by stoning, and I’m not going to advocate for it in the interest of cultural relativism because to be candid, it’s so unbelievably draconian, it’s become irrelevant. God that sounds like I’m saying God’s law is irrelevant and draconian, but I digress…

You can be punished by stoning in all three of the Abrahamic faiths, yes, hello we really are a group of dysfunctional triplets, but let’s try and step away from the basic human impulse to murder each other and think about it for a few minutes and try and embrace justice and some of the attributes of Allah: most merciful, most compassionate…

Gaza ‘Fulbright Three’ Lose Visas

I know how we can create mutual understanding and foster peace in the world: revoke Fulbrights based on vague claims of “extra information” about the recipients of the visas and the Fulbrights.

Are people for fucking real? $10 says this is happening in part because of the fiasco with Aafia Saddiqui and her MIT-educated rampage earlier this week.

Aafia Siddiqui: The ‘Grey Lady’ of Bagram?

I never want to believe that women are capable of terrorism. It’s something in my brain that says that men are capable of violence, but women are driven to violence only in times of incredible desperation. I work in gender, but as a woman, I too cannot surmount the notion of violence committed by women for any other reason than that they are threatened.

The London Times is offering speculation that that Aafia Siddiqui may be the “Grey Lady” of Bagram Prison, the woman whose screams were heard by fellow prisoners in the notorious prison since 2004.

Aafia Siddiqui, the MIT-educated doctor and scientist was captured in Afghanistan this week carrying plans for explosives and maps of US landmarks. Suddenly she has resurfaced after disappearing in 2003 after a cab ride to visit family in Islamabad. Apparently Siddiqui has been as difficult to locate as Osama bin Laden, or has she? Five years after she disappeared in the Pakistani metropolis where she resided, she is captured in Afghanistan, seemingly in one of the most benign captures of the war.

According to US officials, whose information is notoriously vague in the interest of protecting US interests, she was captured with the above materials on her person and somehow managed to get ahold of an assault rifle during her interrogation and managed to get-off two shots before she was shot in the chest to be subdued. Does anyone else find that odd?

Only a hysterical woman, a woman who has been confined to the brink of madness would react in such a violent manner. She, not unlike the wave of suicide bombers in Iraq, is the product of a desperate situation, a radical hysteria, I hate that word for what it implies about women, but it has some truth in these circumstances, that has driven them to react with fight or flight. In this new age of war, the choice is clear: fight. She got off two shots at US officials and now she’s been shot in the chest. Not the leg or the arm to disable her, but the chest. Are these people for real? What really happened in that room? More of what happened to the infamous Prisoner 650: TORTURE.

This whole episode makes me so angry. I cannot and will not believe that Aafia Siddiqui is guilty of everything that she is accused of doing. A novel idea for this so-called “War on Terror” would be a transparent “War on Terror” where the real perpetrators of the bastardisation of Islam could be brought to justice, certainly not Aafia Siddiqui and, if she isn’t Prisoner 650, not the Grey Lady of Bagram Prison.

Who is Prisoner 650? The Grey Lady of Bagram

Who is Prisoner 650?

A grey lady haunts the notorious U.S. controlled Bagram Prison of Afghanistan. The scene of the notorious murders of two Afghan men committed by U.S. troops through the use of torture in flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention.

According to prison sources and international advocates, including leader of the Pakistani Tehrik-i-Insaf Party, Imran Khan, and activist Yvonne Ridley, there is a Pakistani woman who is languishing in the draconian Bagram Prison in Afghanistan. Her name is not known, her nationality is believed to be Pakistani, and her screams have been heard for years.

Reports of her existence have been corroborated by former prisoners of Bagram, including Moazzam Begg and four Arabs who escaped from the Soviet-built detention and torture center in 2004. Begg wrote in his book that during his detention that he, “began to hear the screams of a woman next door.”

It is not known the name, identity, profession, nationality, or charges lobbied against Prisoner 650 in Bagram Prison. Officials deny that a woman is imprisoned in Bagram, but five former prisoners have testified publicly  to hearing the cries of a woman inside the prison. There is some speculation that Prisoner 650 is an enemy of the Pakistani government being held as a favor to the Musharraf government, while others contend that she is another casualty of the haphazard U.S.-led War on Terror in Afghanistan.

Whoever Prisoner 650 is, she deserves our support, a voice, a fair trial, and a reason to cease her screams. There is absolutely no reason for a woman’s screams to be heard through the walls of any prison in this world. Let us press our governments for a response to who Prisoner 650 is and press for her release and for her name and may whoever tortures her hear her screams through the night for as long as they live.

WHO IS PRISONER 650?

The Soccer Ladies of Afghanistan ~ Help Needed

I’m coming-out of my summer holiday to post this for my friend Afifa jan. This is her initiative at BPeace which is Businesswomen for Peace.

Please visit the BPeace Blog post on “The Soccer Ladies of Afghanistan” and read below for information on how you can donate to help bring the “Soccer Ladies of Afghanistan” to the US this October for a 3 week apprenticeship with various craftsmen who make soccer balls!

This is good for ZAKAAT!!!

The Soccer Ladies of Afghanistan Need YOU!

http://www.bpeacesoccer.blogspot.com/

Aziza, Ferishta and Taj will be three of 12 Afghan businesswomen traveling to the U.S . in October to apprentice on the job at American firms. This Bpeace program is partially funded by the U.S. Department of State, but we are still short of the funds needed to bring these soccer ladies to the U.S.

The headlines say one thing about Afghanistan. We at Bpeace see a different face. Brave women entrepreneurs creating hundreds of jobs for women, especially widows, in their communities.

Aziza, Ferishta and Taj run soccer ball manufacturing businesses. They provide safe home-based jobs for their workers, all women–many of whom are widows. By stitching 500 soccer balls, a woman can earn enough income to support her family for a year.

Currently, their businesses employ more than 436 women who support more than 2,958 family members–enabling children to be fed, clothed and go to school.

Now these three tenacious women are ready to do more for their country. They want to dramatically expand their businesses and create hundreds more jobs in their communities. They are joining forces to market their soccer balls under one export brand in the U.S. Bpeace volunteers are providing them with management training, branding, and introduction to retailers.

Their three-week apprenticeship in the U.S. will improve their finance, human resources, marketing and customer service skills; provide them with new tools for quality control and exporting; and, most importantly, introduce them to potential distributors and wholesalers for their quality soccer balls.

Please use the ChipIn box at right and contribute what you can to bring Aziza, Ferishta and Taj to the U.S. for three weeks. Together, we can do something big to create more jobs and hope for Afghans who just want a better life for their familes.

Jobs are the key to economic stability everywhere in the world. In Afghanistan, MORE JOBS MEAN LESS VIOLENCE.

Your donation is fully tax-deductible, and you will receive an email receipt from Bpeace.

THANK YOU.