Posted on 12/22/2001 5:27:16 PM PST by aculeus
A LOOK of outrage settled over the features of Abdul Habib Salim, head of the Allauddin orphanage, as he recalled how children had become spoils of war for Taliban officials who took over his institution in late 1996, writes On his first day in the job, the Taliban commander appointed to run the orphanage in place of Salim showed an interest in three teenage orphans. “They were very pretty girls,” said Salim. “Fereshta was 18, a talented seamstress, Maleha was 17 and Mariam just 15.” The next day they were gone.
The commander had taken the women as concubines for his brother and two other relatives. “The Taliban didn’t care about orphans,” said Salim. “They were just loot. They were forcibly married. There was nothing anybody could do.”
A tale of unusual suffering has come to light in Kabul, where hundreds of women were abducted, forcibly married, raped or sold into sexual slavery by Taliban fighters. Many are still missing.
Orphans were easy prey. “The girls had no families to protect them,” said Roma, who teaches sewing at the orphanage, a grim building in a bomb-ravaged part of Kabul. “They had no choice but to go with these men.”
Many more girls were snatched from their homes. One was Shabnam, the sister-in-law of a 32-year-old baker called Mohamed Islamodin.
“If I can find the Taliban commander who took her, I will kill him,” he said. “We think of her all the time. All her things are still here in the house. We dream she will come back to us.”
Two years ago the family heard that Shabnam had become the property of a top Taliban commander with whom she was living in Kabul. After the Taliban fled Kabul, Islamodin went to the house where Shabnam had been. It was empty and there was no sign of her.
“Perhaps they are in Pakistan or another province,” he said. “Our first priority is to find her. Then we must take revenge.”
Mohamed Qasim, a general in the alliance of forces that led the assault to overthrow the Taliban, said he believed that up to 1,000 women had been abducted. He said many were kept as concubines and some were sold as sex slaves to Arabs through the terrorist network of Al-Qaeda.
“We think many of these women were killed or are no longer in Afghanistan,” said Qasim. “But we will do our best to find them.”
The abductions are evidence of the startling hypocrisy of the Taliban regime and its mullahs, who seemed obsessed with protecting women’s virtue. It was said that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader, began his revolt against the government in 1994 in outrage at the rape of two women by soldiers. He captured the men and hanged them from the barrel of their tank.
In reality, the zeal of the “religious police” masked greater abuses by illiterate troops who claimed women as sexual trophies.
Roholla Stanikzai, a magistrate under the Taliban, recalls at least 20 cases in which officials were accused of raping women in Kabul.
One case involved a senior commander who tied up a 13-year-old neighbour and forced himself on her with the help of a female accomplice. The girl’s mother complained to police. The accomplice was imprisoned, but the commander was not even questioned.
Islamodin claimed most of the victims had been families with roots in northern Afghanistan, a hotbed of resistance to Taliban rule. “They wanted to plant their seed in our women so they would not have to face another hostile generation fighting them from the north.”
By all accounts, Taliban soldiers from Omar’s southern Pashtun stronghold were encouraged to seek northern Tajik brides in Kabul. They would offer money, as is customary, to the parents of their intended bride. It was unwise to refuse such proposals. Yet many did — and paid for it.
The director of the women’s prison in Kabul said there were usually an average of 40 women, some as young as 13, behind bars for turning down Taliban suitors. In the end, these dissenting brides always cracked, she said, particularly if other members of their family were brought into prison.
When the object of one Taliban soldier’s passion fled to Pakistan, her sister was jailed in her place. Eventually the soldier offered the sister freedom if she would marry him instead. After a year in prison she accepted. Her fate is unknown.
But if the arguments in Anamensis' previous reply was correct (decent women enjoy sex anyway, the idea that you are "raping" a woman while offering lifetime financial coverage and social respectability (technically) doesn't strike them as horrific) OR the followers of Islam were expected to be incredibly morally upright and not take advantage, it is anacceptable that their "contract" with these girls would force them - sooner or later - into marriage.
Chapt 4:3 of the Holy Qur'an: "...you may marry that whom your right hands possess (-your female captives of war). That is the best way to avoid doing injustice." (emphasis added)
What the civilized world regards as rape, Islam regards as "the best way to avoid doing
Well put
Re Post #9 If it was my daughter or sister and I ever found the guy, I'd tie him up, dissolve his you-know-what in a beaker of sulfuric acid, then give him a lye enema, and finish him off with a slow feed into a chipper shredder.
Mr. Yorker, you may not be familiar with the Holy Qur'an, but you have the spirit of the Hadiths (the sayings of Muhommed.) (He described in detail what he did to the infidels.) You could be the next Muhommed.
I'm with ya... although, I must tell you (donning asbestos suit) it's feminism that's made the difference.
You'll say, Say it isn't so, Joe!! But yeah, it kinda is. See, back when women were unable to hold property, etc (and this is more English society than American, but we inherited so much from them, what can I say) it was also considered very honorable to marry young girls, it was "taking responsibility" and protecting the girl. Now, one big difference is, we have pretty much always been monogamous, from what I remember. (Utah doesn't count right now, kay?) But anyway, nowdays we don't realize that to these guys, when a girl is married, she is given instant respectability, shielded (in part) from sexual suspicion. This is important in a society where they stone 13 year old girls for the crime of having been gang-raped. We don't see it that way cause our women don't need that kind of protection. (And feminism has made it so. Now I say, good, it's served its purpose, can we retire it now?? But anyway...)
So they are really incompatible with us. And I'm not willing to make whatever changes would be necessary to MAKE us compatible with them. Make them compatible with US, fine. Otherwise, no. But that's me. (-:
Yes, you're right, according to the Koran, if I remember correctly (Chap 4?) women are not supposed to be forced into marriage. But you know how folks are, when they really want something, they can find loopholes...
Re:Post #17 There may be Koran connections with this practice...
Chapt 4:3 of the Holy Qur'an: "...you may marry that whom your right hands possess (-your female captives of war). That is the best way to avoid doing injustice." (emphasis added)
What the civilized world regards as rape, Islam regards as "the best way to avoid doing injustice."
Re: post #2 Islam is piece.
Well put
Re Post #9 If it was my daughter or sister and I ever found the guy, I'd tie him up, dissolve his you-know-what in a beaker of sulfuric acid, then give him a lye enema, and finish him off with a slow feed into a chipper shredder.
Mr. Yorker, you may not be familiar with the Holy Qur'an, but you have the spirit of the Hadiths (the sayings of Muhommed) when he described in detail what he did to the infidels.) You could be the next Muhommed.
I am, however, in favor of such things as would deter future Islamic terrorists. The ideas that come to mind include public humiliation and a pigskin burial suit.
From what I gather, those would be unthinkable for any Muslim to intentionally walk into. And they shouldn't be a problem for the non-terrorist type Muslim.
Go shopping for the secular Xmas hoilday to keep wallstreet afloat...and be quiet
I'd favor having him declared legally insane (in spite of the Soviet Union's use of this tactic) and when he's buried, make sure his body faces away from Mecca.
But the larger problem of Islam would remain. The Holy Qur'an is a path to world domination, ala Hitler, Napolean. The peaceful Muslims are the ones that ignore the Holy Qur'an's most abominable commands (9:121 "O you who believe! Fight such of the disbelievers as dwell near to you and let them find firmness in you...") But they are not good Muslims.
At the very least, Islam is organized crime when you consider 20% of their ill gotten gains are to shared with their church (8:41). Maybe our Justice Department should take them seriously and jail their leaders and bankrupt their organization. From what I hear, the Mafia only charges 10% when you operate under their protection.
If the founder of the Ku Klux Klan had only claimed that God had commanded him to kill all the blacks, today all the Grand Dragons would be on TV telling us "KKK is love" and complaining about all the "KKK bashing" that's going on.
Right on target. The only thing I can find to disagree with you on is your use of the word "Holy" to describe the Muslim Murder & Mayhem Manual.
There are plenty of other adjectives that more accurately describe the qualities inherent in the book:
Diabolical, twisted, evil, malignant, vile, despicable, contemptible, depraved, wicked, abominable, loathsome, foul, malevolent, nefarious, atrocious, appalling, dreadful, awful, horrendous, inexcusable, unspeakable, outrageous, scandalous, immoral, shameful, indecent, reprehesible, decadent, perverse, vicious, inhuman, sadistic, fierce, brutal, nasty, malicious, merciless, incorerent, disjointed, rambling, confused, illogical, horrid, revolting, nauseating ...
When I first read this, I thought they might have been tallking about Utah.
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