Expulsion
Of Malalai Joya
From Afghan Parliament
By Zia -Ur-Rehman
10 June, 2007
Countercurrents.org
The
most outspoken female MP of Afghanistan, Malalai Joya, has been expelled
from parliament for speaking truth and her straightforwardness. The
removal of this outspoken feminist demonstrates the hollowness of the
claims of women's advancement under the occupation by Karzai’s
government. Wolisi Jirga (National Assembly) voted to suspend Malalai
Joya, one outspoken women among the 68 women legislators, for three
years from the legislature, citing that she had broken Article 70 of
the Parliament, which had banned Wolesi Jirga members from openly criticizing
each other. Joya had compared the Wolesi Jirga to a "worsen than
a zoo" on a recent television interview, and later called other
members of parliament "criminals” and "drug smugglers”.
She was a relentless critic of the warlords and assorted war criminals
in the Karzai’s government.
This was not the first time that 28-year-old Ms Joya, a passionate advocate
and campaigner of women's rights, has angered male MPs with her criticisms.
Some have thrown water bottles at her while she spoke in debates and
others have threatened her with rape and murder, denounced as a “prostitute”—
all of this taking place in parliament, no less. She has also escaped
from assassination attempts and has to regularly change her address
after receiving death threats from the warlords and Taliban groups both.
Malalai Joya, born in April
25, 1979, is a controversial and renowned Afghani women politician and
human rightist. She was only four when her family fled the country in
1982 to the refugee camps of Pakistan and Iran, joining hundreds of
thousands who had escaped the Soviet invasion three years before.She
received her education in Pakistan and began teaching literacy courses
to other women at age 19. Unable to keep away from her homeland even
at the height of the Taliban's tyranny, Joya returned to Afghanistan
in 1999 and set up a secret school and health clinic for women in the
western city of Heart, and was soon a vocal enemy of the Taliban. For
two years she gave lessons at great personal risk, with the Taliban
banning education or work for women and forcing them under the all-enveloping
burqa.
Joya also runs an NGO, "Organisation
of Promoting Afghan Women's Capabilities" (OPAWC), in the Western
Afghanistan. Joya achieved international attention in December 2003
when, as an elected delegate to the Loya Jirga (Grand Council) convened
to ratify the Afghan Constitution, she spoke out publicly against what
she termed the domination of warlords. In response, Sibghatullah Mujadidi,
chief of the Loya Jirga called her "infidel" and "communist".
Since then she has survived four assassination attempts, and travels
in Afghanistan under a burqa and with armed guards.
Joya was elected to the 249-seat
National Assembly or Wolesi Jirga in September 2005, as a representative
of Farah Province, winning the second highest number of votes in the
province. In her interview to press, she said
"When those people put their trust in me and elected me as their
representative, I decided to bring their suffering to the world's attention
- so that the world would know that even though the men and women of
Afghanistan have had to live in ignorance and poverty for many years,
they don't trust the Taliban or Mujahideen”.
Although Joya receives numerous
death threats and her home has been bombed, she has chosen to continue
her stance against the inclusion of former mujahideen in the current
Afghan government. In 2004, she and a delegation of 50 tribal elders
persuaded President Karzai to dismiss a provincial governor who was
a former Taliban commander
"They should be taken to national and international court,"
Joya stated publicly at the 2003 meeting, her bravery and courage rare
in a country emerging from the harsh and callous Taliban rule, under
which women were barred from public life.
The BBC has called Joya "the
most famous woman in Afghanistan." In a January 27, 2007 interview
with BBC News Joya commented on her personal political mission amid
continuous death threats, saying:
"They will kill me but
they will not kill my voice, because it will be the voice of all Afghan
women. You can cut the flower, but you cannot stop the coming of spring."
Malalai Joya appeared at the Federal Convention of Canada's New Democratic
Party (NDP) in Quebec City on September 10, 2006, supporting party leader
Jack Layton and the NDP's criticism of the NATO-led mission in southern
Afghanistan. She told "No nation can donate liberation to another
nation."
In January 2004, The Cultural
Union of Afghans in Europe awarded her the "Malalai of Maiwand"
award for her brave speech in the Loya Jirga. In December 2004, the
Valle d'Aosta province of Italy awarded her the International Women
of the Year 2004 Award. On March 15, 2006 Mr. Tom Bates, Mayor of Berkeley
presented a certificate of honor to her for "her continued work
on behalf of human rights". On March 2006 she got the "Gwangju
Award for Human Rights 2006" from May 18th Foundation in South
Korea. In Aug 2006, the Womens Peacepower Foundation awarded Joya "Women
of Peace award 2006". She was also among the "1000 Women for
the Nobel Peace Prize 2005”. Malalai was in Sydney, Australia,
on March 8, 2007, as a guest of UNIFEM, speaking about women's rights
in Afghanistan in honor of International Women's Day. The World Economic
Forum selects Joya among 250 Young Global Leaders for 2007.
In April of this year, Joya
was in Los Angeles to interviewing the newspapers say;
"The U.S. government removed the ultra-reactionary and brutal regime
of Taliban, but instead of relying on Afghan people, pushed us from
the frying pan into the fire and selected its friends from among the
most dirty and infamous criminals of the “Northern Alliance,”
which is made up of the sworn enemies of democracy and human rights,
and are as dark-minded, evil, and cruel as the Taliban."…….
The Western media talks about democracy and the liberation of Afghanistan,
but the U.S. and its allies are engaged in the warlordization, criminalization
and drug-lordization of our wounded land."
In 2006, The Washington Post
said of Joya: "Her truth is that warlords should not be permitted
to hide behind "the mask of democracy to hold on to their chairs"
and their pernicious pursuits at the expense of poor, "barefoot"
Afghans who remain voiceless and disillusioned. The warlords are corrupt
"war criminals" who should be tried, and incorrigible "drug
dealers" who brought the country to its knees, she said."
On September 13, she addressed
a gathering in McGill University in Montreal as well as the University
of Ottawa, where she expressed her disappointment with American involvement
in her home country, stating that, "Countries like the US have
their own strategic policies in Afghanistan ... As long as they support
the Northern Alliance with the mask of democracy, there will never be
improvements in Afghanistan."
One can see why administrators
of the Karzai’s government and its NATO patrons have failed to
champion Joya's case. Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch
(HRW) wrote in his statement: "Malalai Joya is a staunch defender
of human rights and a powerful voice for Afghan women, and she shouldn't
have been suspended from parliament”. Karzai regime did this act
on the pressure of tribal chiefs, warlord as well as America. Expulsion
of Joya illustrates the failures of the claims of being so-called campaigner
of women rights by the Karzai’s regime.
*The writer has academic
background in Women Studies and works with Sustainable Development Policy
Institute (SDPI) Islamabad. E-mail. [email protected]
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