Taliban talks terrify Afghan women

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Washington Times:

A real war on women is brewing in Afghanistan.

Women there are worried that the freedoms they have won since U.S. forces toppled the brutal Taliban regime 10 years ago will be squandered if the Islamic hard-liners return to power through a U.S.-led peace process.

“Dark days are in Afghanistan’s future,” said Manizha Naderi, who heads the civil rights group Women for Afghan Women.

U.S. and Afghan officials and the Taliban have been engaged for several months in an effort to initiate peace talks that could lead to the militants playing a role in government.

“If there are negotiations with the Taliban, women’s rights will be the first to go, and women will be forced to stay at home all over again,” Ms. Naderi said in a phone interview from Kabul.

Afghan women bore the brunt of the Taliban’s strict enforcement of Islamic law until U.S. forces overthrew the regime for sheltering al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The Taliban regrouped as a militant force and claimed credit this week for coordinated suicide bombings in Kabul and other cities.

Under the Taliban regime, girls were banned from going to school and women’s educational institutions were closed. Many women were forced to quit their jobs and required to wear burqas.

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Afghan officials say school girls' water poisoned, women's education opponents possibly responsible

 

More than 100 girls at a school in northeastern Afghanistan were admitted to the hospital Tuesday after getting sick from drinking water believed to be poisoned by an opponent of education for girls, an official told Agence France Presse.

"I think some radical elements who oppose girls going to school are behind this act," district governor Mohammad Hussain told AFP, adding that police were looking into the incident.

The schoolgirls suffered symptoms of poisoning such as nausea and headaches after drinking water from a tank at the high school in Takhar, according to AFP.

Haffizullah Safi, head of Takhar's public health department, said: "This is not a natural illness. It's an intentional act to poison schoolgirls," according to Reuters.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/04/17/afghan-school-girls-suffer-alleged-poisoning/?test=latestnews