Apr 18 2006
Media Coverage of Afghan Women’s Oppression?
This was posted on a new media blog that I am a part of. It’s by a group called Women in Media and News. The blog is WIMN’s Voices.
Recently there was a lot of hue and cry about Abdul Rahman, an Afghan man who had converted to Christianity and was facing the death penalty for the crime of apostasy. The US media seemed to suddenly discover that Afghanistan’s new government was behaving much like the old government under the Taliban.
Blow by blow coverage of this incident generated front page headlines. Mainstream and right wing commentators expressed horror at the barbarism of a country we supposedly “liberated.” Government officials like Afghan president Hamid Karzai, and Bush administration officials used their personal influence to win Rahman’s freedom.
Meanwhile, the institutionalized misogyny of Afghanistan’s judiciary had escaped the notice of the media. Only last year a woman named Amina was stoned to death in Badakhshan Province. It was a public execution, Afghanistan’s first since the Taliban, carried out with the blessing of “local officials.” Amina’s “crime” was apparently “adultery.”
Where was the media coverage of Amina’s brutal killing?
More recently, Malalai Joya, a democratically elected female member of the Afghan National Assembly, has been the target of warlords for speaking out against their crimes. She is one of the most popular MPs in the country and is merely exercising her right to speak for her people. After a successful US tour, Joya returned to Afghanistan only to face an onslaught of derisive propaganda and renewed threats. Rather than step in to ensure her life is safe, the US-backed Karzai government has actually withdrawn her security. Joya lives in constant fear of her life, and has survived four assassination attempts.
Where is the media commentators’ outrage at Joya’s plight?
The US media has historically served as a loudspeaker for powerful interests in Afghanistan, amplifying coverage of women’s issues or remaining silent whenever it serves government interests. The Abdul Rahman case is just the latest hypocrisy in an on-going trend of silence on women’s oppression in Afghanistan.
For more on this topic, see my recently published piece on Alternet: Selective Outrage, 03/30/06.
Also see an excellent essay by Mehmooda, a member of RAWA: Defense of Abdul Rahman Misses the Mark!, 03/26/06.
TAKE ACTION: Demand more, and better media coverage on Afghanistan.
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