Published on Alternet.org on March 30, 2006

by Sonali Kolhatkar and James Ingalls

Daily media reports over the case of Afghan Christian convert Abdul Rahman have revealed a sudden concern over Afghanistan’s repressive human rights environment. But routine human rights reports of the ongoing oppression of Afghan women, suppression of the media and underlying Western complicity have barely been noticed.

In the West, government officials, media pundits and right-wing commentators have expressed vocal concern over the life of one Afghan man who …

It’s International Women’s Day 2006 and men still get a free ride. Women still do most of the world’s work, and much of the most important, most difficult work is done by women, at great cost to themselves. So many men who could use their privelege to work in solidarity with women and push their societies towards more justice remain silent, speak diplomatically, or conform to expectations. At the same time I am amazed at how many …

About ten thousand ethnic Pashtuns were forced to leave their homes when Pakistani forces attacked the village of Miran Shah in North Waziristan, part of Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan. Over 100 have been killed, labeled “militants” by the press, although opposition parliamentarian Imran Khan described the operation …

Yesterday morning US president G.W. Bush flew to Afghanistan in secret on his way to India.^[1] Fearing for his life, he confined his visit to a US airbase (the infamous Bagram), a US helicopter, the Afghan Presidential Palace, and the new US embassy. About the new embassy, Bush declared, “It’s a big, …