Desperate Afghan Women Opt for Fiery Suicides

Reuters ^ | April 23, 2004 | David Brunnstrom

[TEXOKIE]

Oprah had a show on in the last few months dealing with the murdering of wives by husbands in India who wanted to get rid of them so they could marry again for another dowry. The means is often burning her with cooking oil. That way the husband or an intimidated wife can cook up the story of accident or suicide. Women are not considered to be the treasures that they really are in that part of the world.

When I read this story, I wondered if these werent actually murders or attempted murders. The women might be too frightened to tell the truth about their attacker. Maybe there are threats against their other family members. Maybe there is some other intimidation being used against them to keep them from naming their attacker.

Just food for thought.

[theFIRMbss]

>Very good summary at that link

I haven't seen it,
but a freeper once said that
Chick does a comic

characterizing
all the Salem inncidents
as staged by Satan

to further erode
religion's direct role in
American life.

[LtKerst]

The woman should have dumped the Gas on her abusive husband
and torched his sorry ass....Ill bet the other husbands in the area would start buying flowers for theirs!

[miss marmelstein]

As you obviously know, the Salem witch trials came out of years of nasty property/land disputes. Although fictionalized, "The Crucible" really does cover this awful chapter in US history pretty reliably...

[Pearls Before Swine]

I have a suspicion that claiming self-defense for a woman doesn't carry much water in Islamic court.

Prairie

All right, then how about a self-defense/suicide? At least take the creep with you, and shooting yourself is quicker than self-immolation.

[weegee]

This article begs the question: "Is this a new trend or the continuation of something that the media never saw fit to report on before?"

Is suicide on the rise, on the decline, or about the same?

Or is this just "Bush's fault - women and children affected most"?

[weegee]

Although fictionalized, "The Crucible" really does cover this awful chapter in US history pretty reliably...

The girls in The Crucible WERE playing at being witches out in the woods. Just as there were communists in America serving the Soviet Union.

The question is whether someone has the right/freedom to be an idiot (dancing naked in the woods as a witch or indoctrinating Americans into accepting communist socialism). The lesson from The Crucible was that innocent people were being tried based on the statements made by others on trial (girls who deliberately lied).

Now if someone wants to commit perjury and wrongly incriminate someone, that used to be considered a crime. After President Clinton's apologists said that "no one is prosecuted for perjury", I just don't know.

McCarthy was right and the KGB files back up the accusations.

[grimalkin]

If you can get a burger in 10 minutes, why not a nation? :P

[miss marmelstein]

Jeez! All I meant is that "The Crucible" tells the story of the events in Beverly & Salem with a fair amount of accuracy. Who was talking about the McCarthy theme??? Lighten up already!

[Lorianne]

Another example of the sentiment: Give me liberty or give me death.

[prairiebreeze]

In the past year, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission has recorded at least 110 cases of self-immolation by women in just five parts of the country.

There have been no fewer than 56 cases in Herat, a Western province ruled by a hard-line Islamist accused of continuing "Taliban-like" restrictions on women.

One of the most interesting aspects of this piece is that half of the immolations occur in Herat. Western Afghanistan and south of Turkmenistan. Which pointed to a somewhat more regional , er, explanation for lack of better word.

Prairie

[weegee]

I'm just saying that the women in The Crucible were witches. As to the accuracy of the trial, I do not know. The author was trying to make a point about McCarthyism, not religious freedom or a historically accurate time piece about the Puritans.

[miss marmelstein]

You are so wrong if you believe that Arthur Miller wasn't trying to portray the events of that awful period in 17th century America. He was FASCINATED by the Salem witch trial and spent mucho hours up in Salem reading the transcripts. Of course, every high school kid knows that one of its themes was the McCarthy/Army hearings.

And I have to tell you, those kids were not really witches. There are no witches. And they didn't dance around in the wood, either - that was one embellishment of the play. They sat around a fire in winter, bored out of their minds, while Tatiba - that poor woman - told them witchcraft tales. Those tales produced the hysteria that lead them to accuse innocent people of witchcraft.

[weegee]

Arthur Miller's The Crucible: Fact & Fiction (or Picky, Picky, Picky...) by Margo Burns - New content added 02/01/04

Why I Wrote The Crucible: An Artist's Answer to Politics By Arthur Miller

[Rennes Templar]

A burger requires you only kill one cow; a nation, 10,000
fanatical terrorists.

[miss marmelstein]

Thank you for the articles. As you can see, they prove my point about Miller's interest in the witch trials. The articles also remind me that while Miller is a fine playwright, he's one of the worst essayists in the world. Unreadable!

[Rennes Templar]

A burger requires you only kill one cow; a nation, 10,000
fanatical terrorists.

[TEXOKIE]

bttt

[Redleg Duke]

No, Austin is predictably on point..."It's all Bush's Fault...WHIIIINNNNEEEE!"

[dirtboy]

In post-Taliban Afghanistan, despite a new constitution enshrining women's rights that the Western-backed government passed in January, this remains a depressingly familiar story.

Yeah, Reuters, women had it soooo good during the benign rule of the Taliban: