Karzai bows to international calls to scrap Afghan 'rape' law

[Turborama]

Source: Observer (UK)

Gordon Brown tells President Hamid Karzai that British soldiers could not die defending regime that oppresses women

Jon Boone in Kabul
Sunday 5 April 2009 16.15 BST

Afghanistan is to review legislation which the UN says would legalise rape within marriage after a dramatic reversal from the president, Hamid Karzai, who signed the rules into law last month.

Karzai has bowed to intense international pressure to scrap the law, described by the UN human rights chief in Afghanistan as "reminiscent of the decrees made by the Taliban regime". It is said to forbid women to refuse to have sex with their husbands and force them to get their spouses' permission before leaving the house, looking for a job, going to the doctor or receiving education.

Gordon Brown has led the international condemnation of the law, saying today it would be unacceptable for British soldiers to die defending a regime that enacted oppressive legislation of this kind. The prime minister told Sky News that Nato leaders had attacked the law in the communique issued at the end of the summit in Strasbourg, and that Karzai had told him it would not come into force in the way that it had been reported.

"I phoned the president immediately about this because anybody who looks at Afghanistan will be worried if we are going to see laws brought in that discriminate against women and put women at risk," Brown said. "I made it absolutely clear to the president that we could not tolerate that situation. You cannot have British troops fighting, and in some cases dying, to save a democracy where that democracy is infringing human rights. (Karzai) responded by saying this law would not be enacted in the way it has been presented."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/05/afghanistan-shia-rape-law-scrap

[NOW tense]

1. Good Leadership Mr. Brown. n/t

[jkappy]

13. Couldn't Obama have joined him??

[Dogtown]

16. Edit

suddenly i don't care about your post.

[uppityperson]

2. Good. Next, to get jobs, health care, education in place to make it so

Afghani's have options to get out of the negatively misogynistic society they have been stuck in.

[IndianaGreen]

3. Karzai needs a good flogging from the Taleban

The Mayor of Kabul's days are numbered.

[dipsydoodle]

6. I think you might find

that the Talebans, mainly in the south , had sfa to do with this. He'd bowed to pressure from the Shias in the north to encourage them to vote for him next time round.

I guess it may be problem throughout that country.

[rpannier]

4. Karzai had told him it would not come into force in the way that it had been reported.

Nowhere in the article does he say how it would 'come into force"

I would love an explanation of this

[JayMusgrove]

5. Many of the NATO allies talked among themselves about this

And Obama was asked directly in Strasbourg yesterday about the law, and condemned it, calling it, (and I quote) "abhorrent"!

I think we under-estimate, so early on, how much power and influence NATO, the EU, and the G20 nations may have on helping to get changes in this world over the next few years, not overnight, but with pressures and collaboration, we may be surprised. This, I think is MY dream, and Obama's, too. I hope he and I are both right.

[Vidar]

7. Good news. Thanks for posting.

[daleo]

8. Lots of wiggle room here

"(Karzai) responded by saying this law would not be enacted in the way it has been presented."

That could mean just about anything.

"Defenders of the law have pointed out that the legislation was improved by the lower house of parliament, which introduced the concession allowing women to leave their homes without the permission of their husbands if they had a good reason to."

So who decides what's a good reason? Does a woman have to petition a court to leave her house? A village elder? Her father? This is no actual improvement in the law, just public relations. No doubt the change in the marital rape clause will be similar.

[Jefferson23]

9. Karzai has failed his people miserably, what a pathetic bastard.

[jody]

10. "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." n/t

[MasonJar]

11. He signed it to get votes! What a miserable piece of excrement Karzai is.

Thank you, Mr. Brown. Where was Obama?

[MasonJar]

12. I want to add that the title might be misleading. We need to insist that

this legislation is not enacted in any form...that it will not come into force in any way at all.

[EFerrari]

14. Agreed! This is all very vague and we need to follow it. n/t

[burning rain]

15. Heckuva job, Brownie!

It's good to be able to say that without irony.

[No Elephants]

17. British troops and American troops have died for a regime that discriminates against women and

continue so to do. Sharia law discriminates against women and Bushco allowed all of Sharia law into the Iraqi Constitution.