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#support afghan women and girls
afeelgoodblog · 1 year
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The Best News of Last Week - January 09, 2023
1. Top British universities offer Afghan women free courses until Taliban lift learning ban
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Afghanistan's ruling Taliban announced last month that women would no longer be able to study at universities and higher education establishments. Institutions were told to implement the ban as soon as possible.
Now, a number of British universities have teamed up through FutureLearn to offer the women in Afghanistan free access to digital learning platforms. Girls and women with internet access will be able to study more than 1,200 courses from top institutions at no cost to themselves.
2. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs extends protections to LGBTQ+ state employees and contractors
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Arizona’s newly elected Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) signed an executive order extending employment protections to state employees and contractors who are LGBTQ+.
As the Human Rights Campaign reports, the executive order, signed on Hobbs’s first day in office Tuesday, directs the state’s Department of Administration to update hiring, promotion, and compensation policies for all state agencies to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and include provisions in all new state contracts to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
3. EU Carbon Emissions Drop To 30-Year Lows
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It was supposed to be a dirty autumn and winter, with European nations scrambling to replace Russian gas with high-polluting coal. But according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, the cold seasons so far have been the cleanest in more than 30 years.
4. Critically endangered rhinoceros gives birth to calf at Kansas City Zoo on New Year's Eve
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The Kansas City Zoo got a special start to the new year: A critically endangered subspecies of rhinoceros gave birth to a calf on Dec. 31, officials announced. The calf is walking, nursing and even playing with its mother, Zuri, animal specialists said.
5. Cancer Vaccine to Simultaneously Kill and Prevent Brain Cancer Developed
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Scientists are harnessing a new way to turn cancer cells into potent, anti-cancer agents. A new stem cell therapy approach eliminates established brain tumors and provides long-term immunity, training the immune system to prevent cancer from returning.
link to the paper …
6. The US has approved use of the world's first vaccine for honey bees.
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It was engineered to prevent fatalities from American foulbrood disease, a bacterial condition known to weaken colonies by attacking bee larvae. As pollinators, bees play a critical role in many aspects of the ecosystem.
The vaccine could serve as a "breakthrough in protecting honey bees", Dalan Animal Health CEO Annette Kleiser said in a statement. It works by introducing an inactive version of the bacteria into the royal jelly fed to the queen, whose larvae then gain immunity.
7. Cat missing for nearly 6 years reunited with owner thanks to microchip
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West Sacramento woman got the surprise of a lifetime Saturday when she was reunited with her missing cat after nearly 6 years thanks to microchip. 
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meanevilandcruel · 9 months
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DONATION MEGA THREAD
This is a megathread of organizations to support. I will personally be donating to these organizations-- Operation "Don't Debate, Just Donate" for more info. BIG THANKS to one of my moots & @chadradfem for the recommendations!
*THIS IS A GROWING LIST* *PLEASE HELP ME FIND MORE ORGS / CHARITIES FOR: AMERICA, WOMEN W DISABILITIES, AND REPRODUCTIVE ACCESS HELP* *ANY RECOMMENDATIONS APPRECIATED PLS!*
LGB Alliance - *UNDER ATTACK BY TRA's* Lesbians, gay men and bisexuals living free from discrimination or disadvantage based on their sexual orientation. Provides advice, support, information, and community for men and women who are SSA.
CamFed - Giving education to girls in rural Africa as well as providing menstrual products, form of travel, books, clothing. Turn girls into future leaders!
Fair Play For Women - raises awareness, provides evidence and analysis, and works to protect the rights of women and girls in the UK! Supports & Protecting women's sports
Educate Girls - Challenging patriarchy and poverty in India by enrolling girls into school and providing support. Has helped 1 million girls ENROLL into school!
Immigrant Women Services - Helps immigrant women by providing translation, crisis intervention & counseling, and with settlement & integration
Women For Afghan Women - Helps support Afghan women & girls / families with food & healthcare goods. As well as providing resources to Afghan refugees. There has been a 300% service request increase since the Taliban takeover in 2021
Southall Black Sisters - UNDER ATTACK BY TRA’s Providing help for women of color who are victims of abuse / violence by offering: Legal advice and representation (ranging from) family to immigration cases , offering emotional support , and shelter.
Nia - UNDER ATTACK BY TRA’s Offers help to women who are victims of sexual abuse / violence (including prostitution) and domestic violence / abuse.
Katrina Dawson Foundation - Helps young women attend The Women’s College within the University of Sydney through scholarships! Offers fellowship and mentoring as well (to undergrads and post-grads / nearly graduating)
One Girl - Providing an education to girls in Sierra Leone. Girls have uniforms, books, and menstrual products paid for. As well as mentorship & extra tuition
SisterWorks - Their mission is to support women who are refugees, asylum seekers or migrants to improve their confidence, mental well-being, sense of belonging and economic outlook.  
Fondo Maria - Helps women gain access to abortions in Mexico City. Helps provide financial, emotional, and logistic support to women who lack resources to access legal abortion
Global Women Project - Help give women around the world the tools and resources they need to build better lives for themselves, their families and communities. Helps in Australia, Nepal, and Cambodia
Ovarian Cancer Australia - They provide a hotline for women with ovarian cancer. Funds goes towards research towards ovarian cancer, as well as offer support for women with ovarian cancer by providing a nurse. Their priorities are: Patient / family care, diagnosis and treatment, early detection, biology, and prevention
Mariposas (Mujeres Cambiando El Mundo) - Women led Organization to offer community and eduction funds to young women / girls in rural Mexico. Empower them to break poverty cycles due to lack of education or limited access to education.
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bellamonde · 1 year
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Update on Afghanistan
Taliban continues its repression of women. 
Here’s a summary of the situation of women in Afghanistan:
Banned from university education
Banned from attending school above 6th grade
Banned from entering parks, bathhouses, gyms, and other public places
Banned from working for domestic or foreign NGOs
Banned from working in the media, including acting
Banned from working outside the home, except for a few sectors and particular roles (which have been ever decreasing)
No women in cabinet and there is no Ministry of Women’s Affairs, effectively removing women’s right to political participation
Women are required to have a male chaperone when they are travelling more than 78 kilometres.
Women have been ordered to wear head-to-toe covering. 
However, brave and courageous Afghan girls and women are protesting. They are taking to the streets, posting their stories online and not giving up. And we have also seen young Afghan men join the fight by walking out from their exams. The women, girls and boys who are protesting are all risking their lives. 
Afghanistan is no longer alone and the women of Afghanistan have millions of women around the world supporting their cause. They will not be silenced. And we have to make sure their voices are amplified. So, please post about Afghanistan and put pressure on your representatives. Taliban is a terrorist regime who has hijacked Afghanistan and is destroying a beautiful people, a beautiful country and an amazing culture. 
Don’t forget, this was Afghanistan in 1970s:
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But Afghan women are strong and brave and continue their fight against repression:
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And now Afghan men have joined them as well as a group of Afghan university students walked out of their exams. 
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Above is a photo of male students at Afghanistan's Nangarhar University walked out of their exams in solidarity with their female peers. 
These brave women and men are endangering their lives. Videos have come out showing Taliban shooting at them with live bullets. But they will not be silenced. Afghan women have been fighting for and demanding their freedom for the past 30 years and they will not stop. And they are no longer alone in this fight. 
#Education is Human Rights
# Women’s Rights = Human Rights
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mariacallous · 5 months
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Afghan refugees who fled their country to escape from decades of war and terrorism have become the unwitting pawns in a cruel and crude political tussle between Pakistan’s government and the extremist Taliban as their once-close relationship disintegrates amid mutual recrimination.
On Oct. 3, Pakistan’s government announced that mass deportations of illegal immigrants, mostly Afghans, would start on Nov. 1. So far, at least 300,000 Afghans have already been ejected, and more than a million others face the same fate as the expulsions continue.
The bilateral fight appears to center on Kabul’s support for extremists who have wreaked havoc and killed hundreds in Pakistan over the last two years—or at least that is how Islamabad sees it, arguing that it is simply applying its own laws. The Taliban deny accusations that they are behind the uptick of terrorism in Pakistan by affiliates that they protect, train, arm, and direct.
Mass deportations are a sign that Pakistan is “putting its house in order,” said Pakistan’s caretaker minister of interior, Sarfraz Bugti. “Pakistan is the only country hosting four million refugees for the last 40 years and still hosting them,” he said via text. “Whoever wanted to stay in our country must stay legally.” Of the 300,000 Afghans already ejected, none have faced any problems upon returning, he told Foreign Policy. As the Taliban are claiming that Afghanistan is now peaceful, he said, “they should help their countrymen to settle themselves.”
“We are not a cruel state,” he said, adding: “Pakistanis are more important.”
The Taliban—who, since returning to power in August 2021, have been responsible for U.N.-documented arbitrary detentions and killings, as well forcing women and girls out of work and education—have called Pakistan’s deportations “inhumane” and “rushed.” Taliban figures have said that the billions of dollars of international aid they still receive are insufficient to deal with the country’s prior economic and humanitarian crises, let alone a mass influx of penniless refugees.
The expulsions come after earlier efforts by Pakistan, such as trade restrictions, to exert pressure on Kabul to rein in the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Pakistani Taliban, whose attacks on military and police present a severe security challenge to the Pakistani state. Acting Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar said earlier this month that TTP attacks have risen by 60 percent since the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, with 2,267 people killed.
The irony is that Pakistan bankrolled the Taliban throughout their 20-year insurgency following their ouster from power during the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. Taliban leaders found sanctuary and funding from Pakistan’s military and intelligence services. When the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan in 2021, then-Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan congratulated them, as did groups such as al Qaeda and Hamas. But rather than continuing as Islamabad’s proxy, the Taliban have reversed roles, providing safe haven for terrorist and jihadi groups, including the TTP.
“While it’s still too early to draw any conclusions on policy shifts in Islamabad, it appears that the initial excitement about the Taliban’s return to power has now turned into frustration,” said Abdullah Khenjani, a former deputy minister of peace in the previous Afghan government. “Consequently, these traditional [Pakistani state] allies of the Taliban are systematically reassessing their leverage to be prepared for potentially worse scenarios.”
Since the Taliban’s return, around 600,000 Afghans made their way into Pakistan, swelling the number of Afghan refugees in the country to an estimated 3.7 million, with 1.32 million registered with the U.N. High Commission on Refugees. Many face destitution, unable to find work or even send their children to local schools. The situation may be even worse after the deportations: Pakistan is reportedly confiscating most of the refugees’ money on the way out, leaving them in a precarious situation in a country already struggling to create jobs for its people or deal with its own humanitarian crises.
Border crossings between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been clogged in recent weeks, as many Afghan refugees preempted the police round-up and began making their way back. Media have reported that some of the undocumented Afghans were born in Pakistan, their parents having fled the uninterrupted conflict at home since the former Soviet Union invaded in 1979. Many of the births were not registered.
Meanwhile, some groups among those being expelled are especially vulnerable. Hundreds of Afghans could face retribution from the Taliban they left the country to escape. Journalists, women, civil and human rights activists, LGBTQ+ advocates, judges, police, former military and government personnel, and Shiite Hazaras have all been targeted by the Taliban, and many escaped to Pakistan, with and without official documents.
Some efforts have been made to help Afghans regarded as vulnerable to Taliban excess if they are returned. Qamar Yousafzai set up the Pakistan-Afghanistan International Federation of Journalists at the National Press Club of Pakistan, in Islamabad, to verify the identities of hundreds of Afghan journalists, issue them with ID cards, and help with housing and health care. He has also interceded for journalists detained by police for a lack of papers. Yet that might not be enough to prevent their deportation.
Amnesty International called for a “halt [to] the continued detentions, deportations, and widespread harassment of Afghan refugees.” If not, it said, “it will be denying thousands of at-risk Afghans, especially women and girls, access to safety, education and livelihood.” The UNHCR and International Organization for Migration, the U.N.’s migration agency, said the forced repatriations had “the potential to result in severe human rights violations, including the separation of families and deportation of minors.”
Once back in Afghanistan, returnees have found the going tough, arriving in a country they hardly know, without resources to restart their lives, many facing a harsh Himalayan winter in camps set up by a Taliban administration ill-equipped to provide for them.
Fariba Faizi, 29, is from the southwestern Afghanistan city of Farah, where she was a journalist with a private radio station. Her mother, Shirin, was a prosecutor for the Farah provincial attorney general’s office, specializing in domestic violence cases. Once the Taliban returned to power, they were both out of their jobs, since women are not permitted to work in the new Afghanistan. They also faced the possibility of detention, beating, rape, and killing.
Along with her family of 10 (parents, siblings, husband, and toddler), Faizi, now eight months pregnant with her second child, moved to Islamabad in April 2022, hoping they’d be safe enough. Once the government announced the deportations, landlords who had been renting to Afghans began to evict them; Faizi’s landlord said he wanted the house back for himself. Her family is now living with friends of Yousafzai, who also arranged charitable support to cover their living costs for six months, she said.
With no work in either Pakistan or Afghanistan, Faizi said, they faced a similar economic situation on either side of the border. In Pakistan, however, the women in the family could at least look for work, she said; their preference would be to stay in Pakistan. As it is, they remain in hiding, afraid of being detained by police and forced over the border once their visas expire.
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septembriseur · 9 months
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I didn’t anticipate that submarine post taking off so much, but while people are here:
Please consider donating to the Afghans in Crisis Network, which is run by people I have worked with and which directly helps at-risk Afghans find and reach situations of safety.
Another great organization to support is the Afghan Girls Financial Assistance Fund. They have supported, and really saved the lives of, several gifted young Afghan women I know who would not have been able to study in the US without their help.
I also strongly encourage those in the US to contact your congressmen and senators about the Afghan Adjustment Act and the Afghan Allies Protection Act, which would try to address at least some of the massive trainwreck that is America’s treatment of its Afghan allies. (I’m happy to talk with anyone at any time about specific cases I’m involved with or the general substance of the bills.)
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joan-of-feminism · 9 months
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Hey Gyns!
I’m sure we’ve all seen a ton of posts asking about how to actually do the on the ground feminist work in our communities, so here is something I’d like to share with y’all that will help you do exactly that.
It’s called The Pad Project. They began in 2013, originally to create a documentary about period poverty in a village in India, but they quickly grew into a worldwide organization to help educate about menstruation and provide women and girls access to period products. They offer a ton of ways to help your community fight period poverty with their Pad Project Toolkit which the screenshots below are taken from. To download the toolkit you can go to their Take Action page and click on the link.
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I’ve been donating to them for some time now and I really wanted to do more, which is how I ended up discovering the Toolkit and signed up to be a fundraiser for their BacktoSchool campaign. It’s a U.S campaign to provide girls here in the States period products for the upcoming school year. They also have international campaigns to help raise money for Afghan girls to attend school which I absolutely love. If you go to their donation page it will show all the campaigns you can donate to. $100 will support 25 U.S girls for an entire school year. $290 will help a woman in Afghanistan through an entire year of university and $1,200 will support her throughout undergrad. Other ways you can help in your own community are period product drives and hosting a screening to watch the documentary (this last one is also a good way to connect with other feminists in your community!)
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I’ll of course be putting a link down below and will be posting something later about my fundraiser so that you can donate if you are able to. If you want to become a fundraiser as well, there is a link on the donation page that will send you to GiveSmart.com. Al it asks for is your name and an email address. You can then post your fundraiser on your socials and have people text the number to donate :)
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djuvlipen · 8 months
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Can't believe I'm being cancelled for disliking gypsies, one of the most misogynistic groups out there who sell girls as young as 10 for gold and money, don't let them get education, etc. Unless you've lived close to them and experienced the whole extent of that culture, stfu
This is a tweet said by a ‘radical feminist’ known on radtwt and this is exactly why I only follow Black, Asian, Indigenous and Roma feminists now. White radfems will excuse their racism under the guise of feminism yet when it comes to actually being feminist and helping Roma women? They’re silent. I can’t believe someone would say this and not think to themselves ‘this is even more reason why I must ally with Roma women against oppressive aspects of their culture’ but instead she goes full nazi and later on says how Roma are ‘forever condemned to be lower caste’ and lives a ‘cringe’ existence without ever thinking about the racism they experience that makes their existence so ‘lower caste’ and ‘cringe’. I’m sorry to bring this to you, I know it could be triggering, but you are the most active Roma radfem I follow right now (the few I follow on twitter have been on hiatus or either suspended :/) and I needed to get this off my chest. I’ve been so annoyed at radfem spaces lately because of bs like this, where white radfems will go on about how they can’t be oppressive because they’re women and all women are oppressed only to turn around and be oppressive racist assholes.
I know the user you are talking about, I'm going to include screenshots for context:
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She was first called out in early June by a Romani feminist and another feminist on Twitter. Unfortunately many of the reactions are like this,
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I think some of those users are actual fascists, because some feminists would rather ally with the far right than support Romani women.
Then you've got the usual jokes about Europeans being just like Hitler because it would kill Gadje to actually take anti-Roma racism seriously for once instead of turning it into an Internet meme,
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Tbh I have seen this sentiment echoed in many radfem spaces, not just on Twitter. A few months ago I received an ask that said "why should I care about Romani women when their culture is so sexist in the first place". A woman commented on one of my posts about racialized misogyny against Romnia with "stop playing the victim, if people don't like you it's because your culture sucks". (I'm paraphrasing because I'm too lazy to find those posts rn)
I totally understand why you'd only follow radfems of colour, I think I follow only a few white radfems as well. White feminists always try and undermine their white privilege because they think being a woman means they can't be oppressors. It's a very one dimensional way to understand how oppression works. I could go on and on about this but I think you summed it up pretty well. They're not only ignoring their race and class privilege, they are also being actively bigoted against woc.
I have heard that misandristlana was Afghan (but living in the UK), I can't find a proof for it because she has been suspended though. In any case it's a huge no hope for women moment but I am really not surprised by this, non-Romani women typically never show support to Romani women so I stopped expecting anything from them. We can only count on ourselves to liberate ourselves. That's why I prioritize fellow Romani women before other women
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laundryandtaxes · 5 months
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Typing here because notes don't give notification but here are the fundamental points of disagreement I take with this framing.
As stated in my reply, it is no secret that Hamas considers itself to be acting on behalf of the Palestinian people or is aligned with their interests, including an end to Israeli occupation. Whether the Palestinian people are aligned with them I do not know, but let's presume for a second that they are, and that every single Palestinian believes that every Israeli citizen is fair game for any amount of brutal violence one chooses to inflict. This still changes nothing other than how Westerners view the moral position of the people. But even if a people had an entirely "bad" national character, it would still not justify their occupation and intentional genocide, which is at least a major part of the fundamental project of Israeli occupation and always has been.
No two situations are exactly the same, but consider the case of Aghanistan. There is a nonzero percentage of Aghans who actively support the Talbian. There is an even larger number who saw their lands and lives and livelihoods and families outright decimated by two decades of war between the occupying US forces and the various fighter groups trying to wrest control out of US hands, and wanted absolutely any end to the war possible even as everyone knew that would mean imminent rule by the Taliban. The US occupation of Afghanistan was terrible and violent and only added to the overall level of violence surrounding everyday people. Neither the fact that the US occupation was horrific, nor the fact that some Afghans support the current Taliban government, means that those egging on the end of US occupation were cheering for the Taliban. The fact that some Aghans support the Taliban does not mean I think women and girls should, in fact, be barred from school and most public life. But even if the national character of the Afghan people was such that every single one of them supported the Talbian during US rule, that wouldn't mean they deserved occupation and genocide for people of poor character. The West has had to outright lie about the levels of Nazi sympathizing and violent elimination of dissent baked into the Ukranian state's character. I acknowledge that this is a position you could call that of a "Soviet sympathizer," but among those in the left with this view of Ukraine, we still don't think the Ukranian people deserve to be tossed into a meat grinder and made to die in tremendous numbers for no reason. Ironically, it is the West with its talk of support that takes this view of the value of the lives of these people. So talk of what a people support or like in a region of the world where of course people have different values and ideas and goals than I would is not a useful barometer for anything imo.
If every Palestinian wanted every Israeli dead tomorrow, the state of Israel would continue to exist. If every Israeli wanted every Palestinian dead tomorrow, the Palestinian people might see a conclusion to their ongoing genocide in the region, because Israel has a state, it has a military, it has almost a whole nation of potential conscripts and gives itself 18 years to militarize and shape the viewpoints of those potential conscripts, it has its Iron dome, it has American backing, it has the aporoval of the "international community" and has been pushing the bounds ever more in the direction of internationall illegal actions for every year of its existence. It is not surprising that it's not the case that every Israeli wants that- it's a function of the fact that human beings generally dislike violence and do not wish to see war. But functionally, I could say the same, that everyone who is sending #prayersforIsrael thinks the people on the receiving end of IDR bombs signed by Israeli children deserved to die, and that every Israeli must answer for some Israelis setting up beach chairs to watch a bombing; ultimately that's what this sounds like to me. I legitimately think the national character of Americans is absolutely awful, and the project itself rotten beyond use, but if some new occupying force showed up tomorrow determined to enact a genocide on the whole nation, I would find that bad in the same fundamental way that I despise all genocide.
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burningtheroots · 11 months
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JK Rowling is not a flawless feminist, but she does more good than those who attack her
I myself criticized JK Rowling because the Harry Potter book series is very male-centric and sometimes struggles to get certain messages across. I won’t elaborate further because, either way, her story and writing are still excellent and her success was well-deserved. And most of the people who now tear her apart wouldn’t do it if she hadn’t been "transphobic".
And I also know that JK Rowling isn’t a flawless feminist, but I want to ask you in return: WHO IS?
JK Rowling has expressed sympathy, respect and love for the trans community and only wants to ensure women‘s sex-based (!) rights and protections. Women are a socioeconomic and political class due to their biological reality, whereas gender is a social construct. It‘s not hateful or bigotry to discuss the experiences of being female.
She has received rape and death threats, repeatedly, got her achievements torn apart and is regularly encountered with misogynistic slurs. Trans rights activists (TRAs) want to silence and intimidate her by any means. And TRAs already do the same with women who don’t have access to the protections JK Rowling can afford — which she also acknowledged, and which is also why she doesn‘t back down.
If violence and misogyny are the "solution", then the "problem" is that what she says is true.
And regardless of what you think of the endless TRA vs. 'TERF' debate, what matters more is what JK Rowling has actually done for women & girls in real life.
✖️ While TRAs invalidate women‘s sex-based rights and oppression, and even forced the cancellation/postponing of the symposium backing Iranian and Afghan women because there was a woman present who has gender critical views (https://reduxx.info/france-violent-trans-activists-force-cancellation-of-symposium-supporting-afghan-and-iranian-women/) although Iranian and Afghan women have nothing to do with it and are in extreme danger and exposed to massive human rights violations, JK Rowling has advocated for Iranian & Afghan women and also donated thousands of dollars to support female lawyers and their families who face death in Afghanistan.
✖️ She lost her billionaire status long ago because she prioritized charities, including charities for women (which is something celebrities quite often overlook).
✖️ She founded a clinic for a neurological condition (M.S.) which is more common in women than men which her own mother died of, while most people don’t even acknowledge that female healthcare is constantly neglected.
✖️ She set up a charitable trust which has been supporting the funding of women‘s and children‘s causes since the year 2000, which is one of the most feminist things you can do.
✖️ Only a little while back she started a centre for female rape victims.
So, perhaps everyone should get off the high horse and focus on doing something meaningful instead of sending pointless violent messages.
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FRANCE: Violent Trans Activists Force Cancellation Of Symposium Supporting Afghan And Iranian Women
Marguerite Stern. Photo Credit: FEMELLISTE
By Genevieve Gluck April 6, 2023
A symposium in Nantes intended to raise awareness of the plight of Afghan and Iranian women has been postponed after trans activists threatened to violently ambush the event because of the presence of a gender critical speaker.
The Comité Laïcité République (CLR – Republic Secularism Committee), an organization dedicated to promoting secularism “as a force for reflection, dialogue, with a balanced tone,” issued a statement on April 5 announcing that their symposium – entitled “Women, Life, Freedom” after the mantra of the Iranian women’s protest movement – would be postponed to a later and as yet unspecified date. The event had previously been planned for April 15 at the Château des ducs de Bretagne in Nantes.
The activists were enraged over the planned presence of Marguerite Stern, a French women’s rights campaigner known for having critical stances on gender ideology and the sex trade.
“Numerous threats inciting violence were made on social media, including the distribution of our poster announcing the event crossed out with a knife, with calls for counter-demonstrations due to the presence of Ms. Stern, an activist feminist, critic of transgender ideology,” read the CLR’s statement.
“This led the organizers to postpone this event for the sake of preserving the safety of the speakers, of all the participants, and to prevent the Château from suffering any damage. The Comité Laïcité République lodged a complaint and informed the Prefect of these threats.”
The CLR added that as a “staunch defender of freedom of expression since its creation,” the group would not participate in the censorship of Stern, and especially not “under the threat of violent groups who excel in insults, and do not ever argue.”
Speaking with Le Figaro regarding the threats of violence from trans activists, Stern compared the accusation of “transphobia” to the label of “Islamophobia”, saying that both terms are used to silence critics. She noted that, according to her detractors, “recalling biological facts and wanting to protect women and children is considered the worst affront.”
Stern is set to speak at the event regarding the state of feminism following the Me Too era. The description of her presentation also mentions that Stern was ousted from her own movement in direct response to her concerns about transgender ideology. Les Collages Contre les Féminicides, a direct action campaign she launched in 2019, involved the creation of murals calling attention to male violence against women and girls.
By January 2020, just under a year after she founded the collective, Stern’s project had been “hijacked” by gender ideology, a situation that she described in a series of posts on Twitter.
“Debates on trans activism are taking up more and more space in feminism, and even garnering all the attention. I interpret this as a new male attempt to prevent women from expressing themselves,” she wrote. “At all times, men have tried to silence women by silencing their revolts. Today they are doing it from within by infiltrating our struggles and taking center stage.”
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Marguerite Stern created Les Collages Contre les Feminicides in 2019 to raise awareness of male violence. Photo Source: margueritestern.com
“I am in favor of deconstructing gender stereotypes, and I believe that trans activism only reinforces them. I observe that men who want to be women suddenly start wearing makeup, to wear dresses and heels. And I consider it an insult to women to consider that it is the tools invented by the patriarchy that make us women. We are women because we have vulvas. It is a biological fact,” Stern elaborated.
She revealed that as the collective made the decision to expel her, they posted a photo to the group’s Instagram account of some of the members next to a mural which read, “Des sisters, pas des cisterfs“, or, “Sisters, not cisterfs,” a portmanteau of the term “cisgender” and “TERF,” a slur frequently used to call for violence against women who reject the belief that men can become women.
Over the past three years, Stern has become a lighting rod for trans activist aggression, enduring harassment both online and in public. After being ostracized by her own collective, Stern continued to campaign for women’s rights and in 2020 she created L’Amazone, which expands upon her previous street artwork but also organizes demonstrations against the prostitution and pornography industries.
Trans activists have targeted L’Amazone‘s street murals, and last summer went so far as to destroy a memorial to the infant victims of shaken baby syndrome.
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The mural was paper-based art plastered near a sidewalk creating a collage with the names and ages of 14 babies who had died as a result of the injury. Most of the infants were aged 1 to 13 months.
On International Women’s Day 2021, Stern was pelted with eggs by trans activists in a coordinated and premeditated assault. She, along with members of L’Amazone and the Collective for the Abolition of Pornography and Prostitution (CAPP) had gathered to hold a demonstration at the Place de la République in Paris. The women soon found themselves swarmed and outnumbered by trans activists who called them “SWERFs”, for Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminist, and shouted, “No feminism without whores.”
Many of the women protesting against the sex industry were themselves survivors of prostitution, but this didn’t deter the trans activists. A menacing threat was spray painted on a statue where the women were gathered which read, “Save a trans person, kill a TERF.”
Last October, women of L’Amazone were physically assaulted by trans activists who tore up their signs and hurled slurs at them while they marched in Paris. Surrounding the women, trans activists screamed “men can have abortions” in apparent retort to the participants’ opposition to gender ideology. They also yelled “TERFs get out,” and “stop transphobia!” During the attack, one women’s rights advocate sustained a broken finger as she was grabbed and shoved.
“I got used to the idea that my life, on a personal and professional scale, will never be the same again. When we start to speak publicly about transgenderism, there is a before and an after,” Stern told Le Figaro. “Only one thing terrifies me more than the threats I receive: the idea of ​​stopping talking.”
A venue has offered to host a talk by Stern in May in support of her campaigning. Café Laïque Bruxelles shared news of the speech by praising “her courageous fight” and promising prospective attendants that “this conference will not be cancelled.” Just three months prior, the cafe was targeted by trans activists who stormed inside and hurled feces in protest over speakers critical of childhood medical transitioning.
Most recently, Stern has partnered with female sexuality influencer Dora Moutot on a project they call Femelliste, which “fights to maintain the sex-based rights of women.”
“Being a woman is not a feeling or a sentiment or a fantasy or a taste in clothes but a biological and sexual reality,” the Femelliste manifesto reads. “Gender is a set of social constructions that lock women and men into stereotyped shackles from which feminists have always tried to free themselves.”
For discussing female anatomy and sexuality, co-founder Moutot was similarly targeted by trans activists for abuse, and is currently facing a criminal complaint, the first of its kind in the nation, over accusations of “misgendering” two transgender public figures.
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So I don't live far away and Marguerite made a group chat so the local women could meet up for drinks afterwards but obvi this is not gonna happen. The TRAs also mass reported her account.
Nantes is a pretty woke city imo and there are few TRAs that I always see irl protesting swerfs and terfs at feminist events. Here they are at the day against violence against prostitutes. They're standing besides people with signs calling to stop the Nordic model because "punished clients=murdered sl*ts" (yeah it doesn't make any sense). I saw that TIM further at March 8th protest... where he did a speech comparing Marguerite and her femelliste project to fascism.
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beardedmrbean · 8 months
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Afghanistan's Taliban rulers on Tuesday celebrated the second anniversary of their return to power.
The group took over the Afghan capital Kabul on August 15, 2021. The US-backed government collapsed and much of its leadership, including former President Ashraf Ghani, went into exile.
So far, no country has recognized the Taliban's government in Afghanistan.
Taliban mark 'Independence Day'
Taliban authorities held official events across the country, celebrating what they called "Afghanistan's Independence day from the US occupation."
US-led forces overthrew the Taliban-led Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in 2001 and withdrew 20 years later.
"On the second anniversary of the conquest of Kabul, we would like to congratulate the mujahid (holy warrior) nation of Afghanistan and ask them to thank Almighty Allah for this great victory," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.
"The conquest of Kabul proved once again that no one can control the proud nation of Afghanistan and guarantee their stay in this country," the Taliban government said in a statement.
Taliban spokesperson to DW: 'How can we be against women?' 
Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen denied that the de facto rulers of Afghanistan were anti-woman in comments to DW News Asia.
"How can we be against women?" he said. "They are our mothers, wives, daughters, sisters."
Taliban authorities have imposed a number of restrictions on women, including enforcing a strict dress code in public, barring them from gyms and parks, and keeping women out of secondary and tertiary education.
Shaheen insisted that the Taliban have not denied women the right to education.
He said that the Taliban would reopen schools and universities to girls and women, but did not provide a timeline for this. "There is a committee set up to create an Islamic environment for that," he said.
Shaheen argued that the Islamist group is supporting women's progress by allowing them to study nursing and specialize as doctors.
Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have allowed for the continued existence female medical professionals so that women do not have to be treated by male staff. 
The UN has accused the Taliban of practicing gender apartheid. On Tuesday, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, said that Taliban rule has "upturned" the lives of Afghan women.
"It's been two years since the Taliban took over in Afghanistan. Two years that upturned the lives of Afghan women and girls, their rights and futures," she said in a statement.
German NGO: Humanitarian situation 'dramatic'
Despite a decrease in fighting, Afghanistan has been grappling with a major humanitarian crisis since the withdrawal of US-led forces and a number of international aid organizations.
The Asia Regional Director of the German humanitarian NGO Welthungerhilfe, Elke Gottschalk, has described the situation in Afghanistan as "dramatic."
She said that 17 million people in the country are threatened by hunger and 29 million people are dependent on humanitarian aid. "You can see this on every street corner," she said in remarks to German public broadcaster ARD.
Afghanistan has a total population of around 42 million.
The country's Taliban rulers imposed a ban on women working in NGOs in 2022, which Gottschalk said brought about additional complications.
She said that while 20% of Welthungerhilfe employees are women, each of these positions had to be negotiated separately and approved by the Taliban.
The head of the Kabul office of Caritas International, Stefan Recker, told Deutschlandfunk radio that two women were still working for the organization but were not allowed to work in the office.
Recker said that the situation in the country was desperate and many people wanted to flee. However, he said he was hopeful because of the improved security situation and the decrease in street crime.
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meanevilandcruel · 9 months
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Operation “Don’t Debate, Just Donate”
Hello everyone.
Due to recent events, I will be donating money to services and organizations that help support women & girls / LGB. $1-$5 (being chronically ill is not cheap).
I am not sure who started it first, I remember seeing it a long time ago. But now I want to do it.
I have a bad habit of engaging in arguments with TRA troles, as well engaging in anon hate. So instead I will donate (with receipts of donation posted)
Every hate comment, message, or submission I get, I will be donating to the groups/services I will link below.
*THIS IS A GROWING LIST*
LGB Alliance - Lesbians, gay men and bisexuals living free from discrimination or disadvantage based on their sexual orientation
CamFed - Giving education to girls in rural Africa as well as providing menstrual products, form of travel, books, clothing. Turn girls into future leaders
Fair Play For Women - raises awareness, provides evidence and analysis, and works to protect the rights of women and girls in the UK
Educate Girls - Challenging patriarchy and poverty in India by enrolling girls into school and providing support
Immigrant Women Services - Helps immigrant women by providing translation, crisis intervention & counseling, and with settlement & integration
Women For Afghan Women - Helps support Afghan women & girls / families with food & healthcare goods. As well as providing resources to Afghan refugees. There has been a 300% service request increase since the Taliban takeover in 2021
A few of my moots have sent me information to their local shelters for women so that I may donate. Some are children & pet friendly. I will ask them if I may share, for now I will keep it private for the safety of their privacy.
I would also like to donate to Radfems in need. So if you’re a radfem who needs help, or you know a radfem who needs help, please DM me. Also please DM me with other organizations I may donate to. These will also be private unless spoken otherwise.
🫶🏻
DONATION MEGA THREAD
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trustednewstribune · 9 months
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Afghanistan's 'gender apartheid' should be international crime: UN expert
"It is imperative that we do not look away," Richard Bennett told the UN Human Rights Council.
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The UN's top expert on rights in Afghanistan urged countries Monday to consider making "gender apartheid" an international crime, helping hold the Taliban accountable for its grave and systematic abuses against Afghan women.
Since ousting a foreign-backed government in August 2021, the Taliban authorities have imposed an austere sharia law, barring girls from secondary school, pushing women out of many government jobs, preventing them from travelling without a male relative and ordering them to cover up outside the home.
"It is imperative that we do not look away," Richard Bennett told the UN Human Rights Council.
Presenting his latest report, the UN special rapporteur on the situation in Afghanistan told the council that the Taliban's actions could constitute the crime against humanity of "gender persecution".
In addition, "grave, systematic and institutionalised discrimination against women and girls is at the heart of Taliban ideology and rule, which also gives rise to concerns that they may be responsible for gender apartheid", he said.
Such "serious human rights violations, which although not yet an explicit international crime, requires further study," he insisted.
Framing gender apartheid as an international crime would highlight that other countries and the broader international community "have a duty to take effective action to end the practice", the report said.
"Women often talk about being buried alive, breathing, but not being able to do much else without facing restrictions and punishments," said Shaharzad Akbar, the head of the Rawadari rights group and former head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.
"Taliban have turned Afghanistan to a mass graveyard of Afghan women and girls's ambitions, dreams and potential," she told the council.
The UN has already labelled the situation in Afghanistan under the Taliban as "gender-based apartheid", but the term is not currently recognised under the Rome Statute among the worst international crimes.
Bennett and others called Monday for countries to consider changing that.
Akbar backed the call, urging the council to "support the inclusion of gender apartheid in the Draft Convention on Crimes Against Humanity."
Bennett's report -- drafted jointly with the UN working group on discrimination against women and girls -- called on countries to "mandate a report on gender apartheid as an institutionalised system of discrimination, segregation, humiliation and exclusion of women and girls".
This should be done, the report said, "with a view to developing further normative standards and tools, galvanising international legal condemnation and action to end it and ensure its non-repetition".
A number of country representatives also voiced support for the idea Monday.
Among those was the South African representative Bronwen Levy, who urged the international community to "take action against what the report describes as gender apartheid, much like it did in support of South Africa's struggle against racial apartheid."
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mariacallous · 9 months
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Hatred is stalking the women of Afghanistan, pushing them further into darkness as world leaders appear to be ignoring the terrible truth that the Taliban’s efforts to disappear half the population are central to their hold on power. Taliban leaders say their misogynistic policies are steeped in religion, tradition, and respect for women. They tell Western officials that the prison-like restrictions will soon be eased, only then to tighten them further. For women who are isolated, brutalized, and desperate, Afghanistan has become that place where nobody can hear them scream.
The U.N.’s special rapporteur on Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, issued another devastating report on Friday and again called on the Taliban to honor obligations to protect human rights, and for U.N. member states to ensure the “situation of human rights of women and girls in Afghanistan is central to all policy decisions and engagement” with the Taliban. Human rights organizations have reported extensively on Taliban atrocities, describing the anti-woman practices as “crimes against humanity,” “gender apartheid,” “a war on women,” and “femicide.”
Afghan women don’t use the jargon. They tell of gang rapes and being beaten on their breasts and genitals so they cannot display their injuries. They tell how their rapists urinated in their faces, and of much, much worse. They tell of relatives kidnapped into sex slavery to serve as Taliban “wives,” or murdered by the “vice and virtue police” for resisting, their bodies found by roadsides or hanging in trees. In interviews with Foreign Policy, women said that revealing their identities would be a death sentence.
Inequality and misogyny are hardly exclusive to Afghanistan, or to many fundamentalist religions more broadly, but the Taliban are plumbing depths few outside the country can comprehend. The question is why misogyny is so central to the Taliban worldview. The Taliban were already notoriously brutal toward women during their first rule, between 1996 and 2001. In their second incarnation, they’ve only gotten worse.
They seem to have deftly manipulated religious conservatism, which was consistent across most of Afghanistan’s ethnic and religious groups, into an elemental expression of what it means to be a “good” Muslim. The privations of war, beginning with the Soviet invasion in 1979, arguably led to the emasculation of Afghanistan’s men, who juxtaposed their masculinity against a weaker position for women. With the arrival in 2001 of the United States and billions of dollars in programs to educate and emancipate women, the notion of feminism could then be easily portrayed as another attack on the natural order of the country’s culture and religion, in which men were dominant.
Rights activists and academics said the Taliban have used their rhetorical and physical violence against women to secure support from conservative and religious communities. Those are mostly, though not exclusively, Sunni Pashtuns who predominate in southern Afghanistan and live according to a mythologized life code that extends warm hospitality, even to al Qaeda and other terrorists, and sequesters women from nearly all spheres of public life. The Taliban refined and intensified that ideology as they fought the so-called infidel U.S.-led forces and members of what they saw as a puppet government during their ultimately successful 20-year insurgency to win back control of the country.
“From 2001 to 2021, I think they evolved in a way that made their abusive views on women and girls even more central to their cause. So it makes sense that they won’t budge on those issues, after that ideology arguably led them to victory,” said Heather Barr, the associate women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch.
Part of the reason that misogyny became so central to the new Taliban was because of the way the group propagated itself, by brainwashing millions of boys in religious schools, or madrassas, in the mountainous border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were the Taliban’s future, then their cannon fodder, and now are their enforcers. The male-only madrassas that taught Taliban fighters Quran recitation and bomb-making—and where many were victims of sexual violence—also deprived them of family.
“They were always isolated from the other half of the population,” former Deputy Education Minister Marjan Mateen said. “If you have respectful relationships with the women in your family, you will have respect for women. The madrassa system deprived them of this.”
Keeping women uneducated was also a central plank of the Taliban’s construction of their new state, she said. The repression of women is “deeply rooted in traditional notions of patriarchy, but which they try to justify with recourse to Islam and culture,” she said, and an educated woman threatens that power base. “It is strategic to deprive women of education and agency, as this keeps the entire household ignorant,” she said.
Now back in charge, the Taliban cannot build an economy or create jobs. All they can offer to millions of young, uneducated, and unemployed men are women. “Being the king of their home and having total control of ‘their women’ may be all the power and recognition they get,” Barr said.
Afghan Witness, a British nongovernmental organization, has collected data on more than 140 reports of women being “individually killed, often in circumstances of extreme violence and brutality,” team leader David Osborn said. That is probably an undercount given the limits of open-source data, he noted. With laws of the previous government canceled in favor of an unspecified interpretation of Sharia law, “justice for the victims and families left behind has rarely resulted,” he said. “From our analysis, the picture is clear: There is a culture of impunity for femicide in the Taliban’s Afghanistan.”
Afghanistan was no paradise for women even before the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, regularly rated the worst place in the world to be born as a woman. Their lack of rights under the Taliban’s first regime was used as one of the justifications for the 2001 U.S.-led invasion after the Sept. 11 terror attacks: In a radio address supporting the military retaliation against the Taliban for colluding with al Qaeda, then-first lady Laura Bush called out the Taliban’s “brutality against women and children.” With the removal of the Taliban “terrorists,” she said, “women are no longer imprisoned in their homes. They can listen to music and teach their daughters without fear of punishment.”
Soon after, a new constitution guaranteed women’s rights, and there was incremental, if slow, progress. The patriarchal culture that privileges men over women by social norms started to break down as the benefits of laws to protect women’s rights started to be felt beyond the cities. Women began to see education and development as pathways to peace. It was a multigenerational project, but with millions of girls going to school—up from nearly zero under the Taliban—and many getting degrees, working, running businesses, and traveling abroad, things were demonstrably better.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s exit deal with the Taliban in 2020 threw it all into reverse, and President Joe Biden’s decision to stick with the U.S. withdrawal has taken Afghanistan back to the dark ages of the Taliban 1.0. Women are again banned from school, university, most work, travel, going to parks and gyms, playing sports, and in most cases, leaving their homes alone. The Taliban have banned charities, including U.N. agencies, from employing women to deliver aid to women. This cuts them off from essentials such as food, medicine, and clothing, making them vulnerable to sexual exploitation and violence. Some non-U.N. organizations have found ways around the ban, though many believe the Taliban are moving toward strict enforcement.
At the highest levels of powerful world bodies, the reality of the Taliban is slow to sink in. Martin Griffiths, the U.N.’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, spoke for many when he met with Taliban leaders after they issued the charity ban in December and barred women from university. He emerged from meetings to say he had received “encouraging responses” from Taliban leaders that new “guidelines” on how women live and work would soon be issued, only to be humiliated within hours when the Taliban instead issued further restrictions. This month, senior Taliban figure Suhail Shaheen, in a clear reference to women’s rights, said the world is “slowly accepting the realities” that the “conditions of the international community are not acceptable” to the terrorist-led group.
The Taliban do not have formal recognition from any country, yet there is an insidious and subtle form of engagement nonetheless that is entrenching the Taliban’s worst behaviors. Some countries, such as China, Russia, Iran, and Turkey, maintain embassies in Kabul and accept Taliban figures in the former Republic of Afghanistan’s overseas embassies. This low-key engagement is undermining “shared values” such as rule of law, nondiscrimination, freedom of thought, and respect for both women’s rights and human rights more broadly, said former Afghan national security agency official Ahmad Shuja Jamal. “This creeping increase in diplomatic engagement short of recognition,” he said, enables the Taliban “to establish gender apartheid by completely banning women from public participation.”
Jamal said that the governments and multilateral organizations that deal with the Taliban—including the United States, Russia, China, and the U.N.—“are contributing to a breakdown of those values, which is currently harming the Afghan people most directly, but that degradation is going to affect every person all over the world in the long term.”
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bellamonde · 1 year
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Iran to Afghanistan - Building a Sisterhood
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These are signs in the streets of Iran. To all my Afghan sisters, Iranian women everywhere stand with you and support you. Together, we’ll win. 
Some Background Info:
Afghan women began a wave of protests in the days after the Taliban seizure of power, rallying in Kabul and towns across many provinces, including Balkh, Herat, Kunduz, Baghlan, Takhar, Kapisa, Panjshir and Bamyan. Taliban enforcers beat protesters with batons and arrested them, both women and men. They also arrested protesters’ family members. Under this assault, women this year began holding smaller protests. 14 months on, women are gathering in offices or homes to produce photos and videos in which, masked for security, they present speeches and signs with their demands for justice and then share them via text messages, WhatsApp, Twitter or Facebook.
The brave and courageous Afghan women continue to defy the Taliban with periodic public rallies, including street protests this month against an increase under Taliban rule of violent attacks and hate speech against Afghanistan’s ethnic Hazara minority. These latest rallies condemned the horrific September 30 bombing in Kabul, which killed more than 35 ethnic Hazara girls and women at a school. 
In the past six months, the Taliban has:
Dissolved the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, for years the nation’s most prominent human rights authority and long directed by women.
Ordered women to cover their faces in public. 
Stopped issuing driver’s licenses to women and has banned women from using public transportation unless accompanied by a close male relative. The Taliban has restored Ministry of Vice and Virtue (akin to Iran’s morality police) and has ordered bus drivers to install curtains to close off the designated seats for women in buses.
Ordered schoolgirls in the fourth to sixth grades in Ghazni province to cover their faces while walking to or from school, or to face expulsion.
Banned women from going to public parks where authorities cannot ensure segregation between men and women.
Instructed women employees of the Finance Ministry, in phone calls to each one personally, to send male relatives to their offices to replace them.
In recent weeks, the Taliban’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue has in some schools instructed principals to examine the bodies of girls as young as 10 or 11 for signs of puberty — and to expel from school any girls who appear older or whose bodies are beginning to mature.
Taliban are continuing routine torture and killings of women. Their officials in the central province of Ghor this month condemned a 24-year-old to execution by being buried to the waist in a pit and then stoned to death for alleged adultery. She committed suicide before her scheduled killing, according to news agencies .
Two countries, one struggle. #Woman Life Freedom
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Meanwhile, F.J. remains deeply concerned about the safety of her family, who remain under Taliban's surveillance. "They know I have left and they are harassing and shaming my family because of it. I am so afraid they will hurt my parents or kill them for supporting my freedom," she added, choking back tears."
I am in a very bad mental state; I used to be the voice of Afghan women, and overnight, I became voiceless, with no rights, and no one to fight and defend my rights. I wish no women has to ever go through what I experienced," she added.
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