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Bush misadministration lying about women's rights in Afghanistan
Two reports at the end of 2002 described the horrific situation in western Afghanistan where Ismail Khan had established a dictatorial fiefdom over three provinces, ignoring the Karzai government with tacit approval from the US. In an HRW report entitled 'We Want to Live as Humans': Repression of Women and Girls in Western Afghanistan, several women described the situation under Khan as virtually similar to living under the Taliban. Local police were stopping girls in the street and forcefully carrying out virginity tests. "Herat is the worst province for women in Afghanistan," said a UN official working with women's groups in Afghanistan. Ismail Khan has also revived the Taliban's much-feared Department of Vice and Virtue, which encourages young male goons to walk around streets and schools to make sure that segregation is being enforced.
Acts of torture were, and are, according to HRW, commonplace in Herat - "beatings...hanging upside-down, whipping, and shocking with electrical wires attached to the toes and thumbs." A torture victim described what happened to him and his friend:
Then they gave my friend electricity shocks. They used a crank generator. The had to crank it very fast to produce the shock. They tied two electrical lines to each of his big toes. Three or four times they shocked him.... Each time my friend's body would be thrown by the shock. After that, my friend signed the confession paper. Then I signed it also so that I would not be beaten.
All this has been happening while US Special Forces and diplomats and UN officials are based in Herat. When US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Herat on April 29, 2002, he described Khan as "an appealing person, thoughtful, measured, and self-confident."
Acts of torture were, and are, according to HRW, commonplace in Herat - "beatings...hanging upside-down, whipping, and shocking with electrical wires attached to the toes and thumbs." A torture victim described what happened to him and his friend:
Then they gave my friend electricity shocks. They used a crank generator. The had to crank it very fast to produce the shock. They tied two electrical lines to each of his big toes. Three or four times they shocked him.... Each time my friend's body would be thrown by the shock. After that, my friend signed the confession paper. Then I signed it also so that I would not be beaten.
All this has been happening while US Special Forces and diplomats and UN officials are based in Herat. When US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Herat on April 29, 2002, he described Khan as "an appealing person, thoughtful, measured, and self-confident."
- - snipped from here.
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