Colombia: War strategies are accentuated in the preelectoral period

Serious human rights violations are being noted in Chocó and Cauca

We women continue to be the most affected by the actions of armed groups.





We confirm the need for humanitarian accords in the region.

Bogotá, 25 May 2011. The Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres launches an urgent appeal to the state institutions, to human rights organisations and to the international community in the face of grave violations of international humanitarian law that are taking place in the departments of Chocó and Cauca, where the civilian population is being held hostage and those engaged in armed clashes avoid their responsibility to distinguish between civlians and combattents.

For this movement of women, it is urgent to protect the population of these departments, especially women and girls, since the increase in the presence and activity of armed groups expose them to high risks. This circumstance provokes a climate of fear in the preelectoral period, generating in women even greater fear of taking part in public activity and so reinforces their exclusion from the political and social scene.

In Chocó in the past 15 days, 220 people were abducted and then released. There is a constant worry that these strategies of war that put at risk the afro and indigenous people who live in the area may continue.

In the department of Cauca, the activities of armed groups is increasing in three directons: firstly putting the civilian population in the crossfire, as is happening in the clashes between the army and the FARC in the north of the department; secondly in the threats against women leaders in the region that have been received in leaflets signed by offshoot groups from the AUC (paramilitaries) who operate in the region, and lastly it is evident in the deterioration of the practices of war and the imposition of terror by paramilitary groups, particularly directed against women with regard to control of their bodies. Consequently, the increase in the presence and activities of these groups in the region puts women and girls who have been victims of systematic sexual violence at the hands of these groups in an situation of extremely serious risk.

The women of Cauca and Chocó confirm that they continue to be involved in outbreaks of armed conflict and that there is no suitable response from the state to protect their rights

It's important to point ut that the dynamic of armed conflict in Colombia and the way in which it heightens favours the continued escalation of violence against women, often not reported because of the lack of judicial structures and of the absence of guarantees for the protection of their lives.

All this reinforces the postion of the Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres on the overriding necessity for a negotiated settlement to the armed conflict that allows us to put down the basis for a lasting peace in Colombia.

We women do not bear sons and daughters for the war

Demilitarise June 2nd

We are sick of war of arms, of military parades

The 2nd June is our national day, the festival women and men who recognise their aspirations in the Consititution that defines the rights of all, the right to work, the education, to health care..., and that repudiates war.

To reinterate our NO:

to WAR, to MILITARY SPENDING, to the CULTURE OF WAR, to the MILITARISATION of our land and our lives.

To say that we want a June 2nd that is DIFFERENT where we can celebrate as citizens of:

• a country that is welcoming, founded on respect, on listening, and on mutual recognition between men and women, natives and immigrants, between "us" and "the others".
  

• a country where young people can have a future and old people a dignified and peaceful life

• a country where common goods - air, water, land, energy, our artistic and cultural historical patrimony, the natural environment, the landscape
- remain outside the logic of the market

• a country that knows how to face internal and international conflicts without recourse to force.
  

• a country that invests not in arms and war but in culture, education, healthcare, employment.

We've had enough of easy apologies

Nato's intervention has made the situation worse since 2001, with bombings and deaths on a daily basis, and widespread disillusion caused by the license given to warlords. This has embittered social and human relations. No change of tactics can cancel western deeds from the minds of Afghans: firing on weddings, murdering civilians during celebrations,protecting the corrupt mafiosi who fill the government of Karzai. di cui s’è riempito il governo Karzai.

Samia Walid, member of RAWA (Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan

On 18 may, at Taloquan in the north of Afghanistan, 12 civilians were killed and at least 80 injured during a protest provoked by the latest killing of civilians - two women and two men - in a night raid by US special forces.

This is the fourth "incident" of the kind in a week. On 16 May, NATO forces killed a 10 year old girl and injured another 4 children in the eastern province of Kunar. On the 14th they killed a 15 year old boy during a night raid in the Nangarhar province. On the 12th, in the same zone, another night raid caused the death of a 12 year old girl and her uncle, a policeman.

NATO forces are currently carrying out around 600 raids every month. The raids have produced horrific crimes, including the killing of children. In one case, last year, soliders dug the bullets out of the bodies of two pregnant women to conceal their responsibility for the killings.

When it isn't possible to hide their responsibility, the NATO leaders offer apologies. But these apologies come too easily. The bitter message for the families of victims is that their loved ones are collateral damage - a price that must be paid.

We ask those who still believe that NATO has a positive role to perform in Afghanistan - to prevent civil war or to improve the situation of women - to reflect on how they would feel if it were their own loved ones who were killed with such unconcern.

We are not ingenuous. We don't believe that the withdrawal of foreign troops will immediately bring about peace in Afghanistan. But we do believe that the presence of NATO troops is part of the problem, not the solution. Apart from the violence committed y NATO soldiers, the policy of creating alliances with fundamentalist groups and with warlords favours the use of armed force as a political strategy and makes the struggle of civil society more difficult.

Some people shrug their shoulders and say that warlords are part of the Afghan reality, a problem of the Afghan culture. We reply that warlords are a part of the Afghan reality, because it is a land that has been at war for decades. Warlords are not a part of the Afghan culture, they are a part of the culture of militarisation - which the presence of NATO forces can only reinforce.

Finally, we turn to the words of Samia Walid in an interview during her current visit to Italy:



Foreign forces must leave the country. A civil war could not be worse than what is happening now. It will be up to the people to decide their fate and if the resistance to fundamentalist revives, we will be with the women and men who want to build their own country.

Stay Human

There are men who struggle for a day, and they are good. There are others who struggle for a year, and they are better. There are some who struggle many years, and they are better still. But there are those who struggle all their lives, and these are the indispensible ones (Bertolt Brecht)

Vittorio Arrigoni, killed in Gaza a few hours after being abducte at the age of 36, asked us every day at the end of his articles to:

Stay human

Every day for years, Vittorio recounted in words and images, independently and impartialy, the real life, the struggle for survival of 2 million people imprisoned in Gaza, besieged , bombarded, starved, humiliated.

Vittorio chose to stay in that hell to help those who couldn't leave and to break the silence of indifference about the Gaza Strip, which had become a black hole in reporting, in politics - a gigantic black mark on the ethics and collective morals, smeared with indifference and complicity in the horror.

Vittorio has been murdered. His death today tears aside the veil that covers the Strip and speaks. You can still speak to us all, Vittorio, even though you are no longer here. You can still show us that injustice is insupportable.

Vittorio lived in Gaza for years. He chose to stay there, with his eyes to witness and with his body to show solidarity, because he had seen the theft of land, of water, the demolition of houses, the destruction of farms and of fishing boats (he was injured while accompanying fishermen pescatori, trying to protect them with his body from the armed attacks of the Israeli army, just like Rachel Corrie, killed at Rafah because she put her body between a bulldozer and a house).

Vittorio had seen people with cancer sent back at the Eretz crossing between Gaza and Israel "because of security issues". He had seen Palestinians treated with disdain, beaten, humiliated. He had seen the desparation of the fishermen who were prevented from fishing and he had seen the desperation of the farms, clinging to an olive tree while a bulldozer dragged it away. He had seen women give birth behind a mound because it was impossible to get to the hospitatl. He had seen fear and terror in the eyes of children and he had seen their broken bodies. He had seen premature babies die because the electricity was cut off for 30 minutes at the hospital. He had met girls and boys who had known nothing but sorrow since they were born. He had felt the cold that penetrates the bones in the freezing Gaza nights, without heating, without light. He was in Gaza during operation Cast Lead (December 2008 - January 2009) and witnessed the destruction of thousands of houses and the illing of 3000 people, including hundreds of children, who certainly were not firing rockets.

“Stay human”, Vittorio always said. Wherever we are from, we are part of the same community. Every man, every woman, every child on this planet, wherever he or she is born and lives, has the right to life and dignity. The same rights that we claim for ourselves belong to all the others, without exception.

We embrace the familiy, the volunteers of the ISM, he friends, the young people of Gaza who mobilised to try to save his life.

Let's stay human even if all around humanity seems absent.

Stay human for him, Vittorio Arrigoni, just, passionate, human

I am sure that the greatest contribution we can offer to the memory of Vittorio is to continue to work to support the population of Gaza and of Palestine in there struggle for freedom, justice and human rights

Mairead Maguire (Nobel peace laureate)

The gaze of women.

L'Aquila: Everyone has looked, but who has really seen it?

The committee Donne terre-mutate launches a national encounter.

To bring women from all over Italy to see L’Aquila as it is.

To smell the scents and touch the broken remnents and to hold hands.

Donne terre-mutate Call us to L'Aquila 7 and May

www.laquiladonne.com

An Arab, a Jew, a human. We remember Julian Mer Khamis

Juliano Mer Khamis, Israeli actor and director, was the son of Arna, a Jewish Israeli woman, founder of the theatre school in the Jenin refugee camp, and of Saliba Khamis, a Palestinian from Haifa.

In 2006 he opened the Freedom Theatre in the Jenin refugee camp, as a school of theatre for Palestinian girls and boys, as a space for expression and freedom where they could “Find a new horizon, preserve their values of liberation and not fall into the trap set by the occupation to become the mirror image of their enemy. But for this it's necessary to construct a strong identity that doesn't give way to sendiments of revenge, that is based on universal values, culture, consciousness: If someone kills your daughter, and you have the strength to not kill his daughter, you have the strength to resist and to maintain your values. Then you will be able to beat them because you are stronger as a human being”.

For Juliano, this was the real struggle against the Israeli occupation because "What occupation is doing is destroying society”. But it was also a struggle against all fundamentalism to "build on the basis not of tradition or religion, but of freedom, of democratic structures, of a high level of education, of free opinion, of culture... To combat tradition is to combat the occupation”.

This commitment to freedom, starting with children, was an annoyance to those who did not share his dream of being“the connection, a door, a window”.

On 4 April, Juliano was killed by an armed man, his face covered, who had waited at the entrance to the refugee camp.

We will keep alive his memory and his dream of freedom

War is never the solution

Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya started with the usual pretext: to defend the civilian population - this time from the attacks by the forces of Gaddafi, up to a month ago, the firm ally of those who now bomb him.

We've seen the results of the military interventions and of the lies told to us about Iraq and Afghanistan: thousands of civilians killed and, after so many years, peace is still far away.

As the democratic organisations in Afghanistan say: “For the price of one day of war, we could have built all the schools and hospitals that we need and we could emerge from underdevelopment”.

This intervention is also in violation of article 11 of the Italian constition which repudiates war, and in which it is specified that not only wars of aggression (an offense against the freedom of other peoples) but also war as tool for resolving international conflicts: even if we are right in a conflict, our fundamental law prohibits us from imposing our point of view by force of arms and instead suggests that we use all diplomatic and legal instruments.




And we have many questions

• Why has the international community only now realised that Gaddafi is the head of an authoritarian regime?

• Why did the Italian government sign a economic-military treaty with Libya, which it has not cancelled with the necessary parliamentary vote?

• Why did Italy sell arms to Libya?

• Why did the Security Council of the UN vote for a resolution that allows anyone to go and bomb Libya, rather than defend the civilian population by sending an interposition force of civilian observers to verify the truce declared on March 18.?

• Why did the UN choose ex-colonial countries with large-scale economic interests in Libya to defend the rebels rather than countries that are really neutral in the conflict?

• Why does the fate of the Libyan opposition provoke so much international indignation and the intervention of NATO while this doesn't happen for other countries (Palestine, Bahrain, Sudan) ?

• Why has the Saudi regime sided with the Libyan rebels while repressing any attempt at democratisation in their own country and sending soldiers to repress protests in Bahrain(45 dead in the last few days)?

• Why do solidarity and respect for human rights not apply to the thousands of people who have been washed up on our shores in flight from poverty, conflict and dictatorship?

We are not indifferent to the fate of the Libyan population, just as we were not indifferent to the fate of migrants imprisoned in Gaddafi's camps as part of the treaty that our government with the support of the opposition signed with Libya and reconfirmed yesterday by parliament to allow deportation of immigrants to Libya. However, we have seen that military interventions are bound to fail from our experience of Kosovo (now a large US base) Somalia, Iraq, and above all Afghanistan where none of the declared humanitarian aims have been realised.

We consider humanitarian intervention to be a complete deception, not just because by definition we are against any war but because past and present experience prove it.

At the same time, migrants arrived at Lampeduas are abandoned in inhuman conditions, together with the local population, by the authorities who should take care of them, out of respect for those human rights that the "defend" only with weapons.

We refuse the military response to conflict.

We oppose the use of Italian military bases for this intervention.

We call for a real and effective arms blockade to all parties in the war.
We call for a cessation of the bombing.

War cannot be humanised. It can only be abolished

Albert Einstein

Appeal by the Italian network of women in black for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan

Italy is at war

There is no combat in our territory, but the mechanisms of war are in action with all that implies: rising military spending, militarisation of territory and of minds.

The involvement of Italy in the military intervention in Afghanistan started and the end of 2001 when Italy joined the ISAF mission to provide “security support” and sent 350 military personnel.

It was supposed to last “at least six months” and cost “a few tens of billion lire”.

And now, it's almost 10 years later

The “peacekeeping “ mission has become a war, and leadership has passed from the UN to NATO in 2003 . We moved from light weapons to assault weapons, from light rules of engagements to ever more aggressive rules, from 350 soldiers to 1000 in 2003, 3900 in 2010 and 4200 now.

Since the start of the mission, the cost has been 3 billion 100 million Euro, and costs continue to be 65 million Euro a month.

The refinancing of the military intervention happens every six months with bipartisan support (with a few exceptions), in violation of article 11 of the Constitution, without ever discussing the objectives gained in Parliament. The same happened again in February.

410 million Euro (2.26 million a day) has been budgeted for the Afghanistan mission for the first six months of 2011, while the budget for reconstruction and assistance gets ever tinier (just 16 million for the six month period).

While we are facing ferocious cuts in education, culture, research, health, local government, and the environment, we see that the arms sector and military spending are not suffering any reduction - contrary to what is happening in other European countries.

Since 2006 there has been a 28% rise in military spending in Italy, and this is set to rise by a further 8.4% in 2011. To this we must add money assigned to the Ministry of Development, which have been improperly used to fund new arms systems, and a sum of 1.5 billion Euro for military missions abroad.

The total is therefore 24.3 billion Euro. Among the projects being funded is the purchase of 131 F35 fighterbombers at the cost of 16 billion Euro and of ten frigates at teh cost of 5.6 billion Euro.

The war in Afghanistan fits into the NATO strategic concept, defined at the Lisbon summit 20th November 2010, while consists of bringing in more and more countries and in intervening wherever their interests are "threatened", exercising a form of world dominion and representing a continual threat to peace.

We women in black have always been against the war, and so also against the military intervention in Afghanistan.

In the light of the current situation, we state that all declared objectives have failed; the fight against terrorism, bringing democracy and security, liberating Afghan women.

In reality, the Taleban have retaken control of two thirds of the country. Karzai was reelected fraudulently, the conflict has spread to Pakistan, warlords and druglords are in control, almost 80% of the population is living in poverty, the production of opium has increased to a point where it represents 93% of world production, corruption is widepread, the lives of women have worsened to the point that suicides have increased to unprecedented levels ( women between 18 and 35 set fire to themselves to escape the intollerable violence of their fate).

The Karzai government has reintroduced the “Ministry of Vice and Virtue” and has enacted a law according to which Shiite women cannot refuse sexual relations with their husbands, cannot go to school, cannot go to the doctor or to work without being accompanied by a male relative.

Now they are promulgating a law that brings refuges for mistreated women - up to now run by Afghan NGOs) under direct government control. To go to a refuge, women will have to be accompanied by a male relative and be handed over to the family on request.

If such political deals involving the bodies and lives of women are still happening, it is also the responsibility of the "liberators" among them Italy, which from the start took on the task of rebuilding the Afghan justice system. If this is the result, we must question the millions invested.

We, women in black, during these years have formed relationships with Afghan women's associations (RAWA, HAWCA, OPAWC) who have been a valuable source of testimony and who have made known to us the couragious capacity for unarmed resistance of the women and the Afghan population as a whole.

These women and the many different voices of civil society make up the democratic, nonviolent resistance of the Afghan people and they ask for our support in bringing the military occupation to an end, which would mean for them, as a first step, an end to aerial bombardment - the principle (though by no means the only) cause of the deaths of over 40,000 civilians since the war started.

There is no peace without justice.

• We call for the trial of all the war criminals and war lors who are currently present in the Afghan government.
  


• We call on all who identify themselves as feminists or pacifists to join us in identifying practices, instruments, and forms of opposition to bring about the withrawal of troops from Afghanistan.


• Do not allow Afghanistan to become yet another NATO military base


• Support the democratic forces, starting with the women.
  


• Support the reconstruction of the country outside the logic of militarisation.
  

"Humanitarian" military intervention by governments involved in arms sales

In recent weeks we have watched the rising violence in Libyia with anguish: unarmed civilians killed and injured with weapons sold by our country, and with growing unease we have once more heard the arguments for a "humanitarian war". Now there's a UN resolution that authorises the use of military force, including "all necessary measure". The Wall Street Journal quotes Pentagon officials who speak of using Cruise missiles. We know only too well the price that will be paid in "collateral damage" for this type of strategy.

We reject any military intervention by NATO or any country which has the pretext of of resolving this conflict by military force.

We maintain that states and organisations that have up to now supported interventions against civilian populations, as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Chechnia, etc or who have trafficked in arms and negotiated with dictators do not have the moral authority to act as "saviours" in the Libyan conflict. We consider these countries jointly responsible for the crimes against civil society.

The wave of civil resistance that has mobilised the Mediterranean basin from Maghreb to Machrek is sending the world a message that goes beyond a protest against dictatorial regimes supported up to now by the western world. Now they are shouting "We've had enough of hypocrisy and interventions for economic and strategic interests!"

For this reason the Women in Black call on the European governments and our own government to change their policy to peace, a policy of peace that no army should be sent to defend. We call for a policy that brings social justice and democracy and that is free from the pressure of other governments and multinationals. It should include the sovereignty of the pople and Esso dovrebbe includere anche la sovranità del popolo and avoid any discrimination against any woman or man in the society. It means a policy of peace without weapons.

Only the women and men of Libya should play the leading role in determining their present and future. It is they who must decide if mediators are needed to end the conflict.

We know from experience that only aid without intervention can be useful. For this reason, we invite all governments, implicated in in the sale of arms to Ghaddafi, Ben Ali and Mubarak to immediately send humanitarian aid to all refuges who are now fleeing Libya, when it is asked for by the population.


Last but not least, we ask that our mass media should show full respect and transparency when dealing with the complex reality of the civil resistance movement and the situation of the civilian population. We ask them to avoid the tendency to present news from the militaristic standpoint and from the standpoint of western interests.

Violence generates more violence. Let's avoid a military intervention that could generate more violence!

No Act of Resistance Should Kill Children

We add our voices to this statement released by Luisa Morgantini, spokesperson for the Association for Peace.

We strongly condemn the murder of a family of settlers in the settlement of Itamar, close to Nablus.

No act of resistance can justify the killing of children. Not only because it is illegal, but because it is not human.

This action can only result in more violence and will certainly not bring the freedom to which the Palestian people have a right.

Israel has responded to this criminal act, sealing off the city of Nablus, once again using a reprisal and the collective punishment of an entire population - a population that already lives under a brutal military occupation that impedes freedom of movement, confiscates land, demolishes homes, uproots trees, holds the population of Gaza under siege, represses the non-violent popular resistance and supports the settlers who attack Palestinian civilians including children, like those of At Tuwani, on a daily basis.

The Israeli authorities are trying to place the responsiblity for the action on the Palestinian Authority, but the responsiblity of this criminal act belongs to those people who committed it.

This is the poisined fruit of the Israeli policy of colonisation and of the complicity of the international community which has failed to prevent Israel from continually violating international law and human rights.

We declare our condolences for the death of the Israeli children, our solidarity with the Palestinians affected by the Israeli reprisals, and our commitment to continue in the non-violent struggle together with the Popular Committees who have also condemned the attack on Itamar and restated their choice of non-violent resistance to the wall and the Israeli military occupation - a struggle that they are carrying forward together with Israelis who refuse the colonial policy of their government and with internationals who show their own governments the road of affermation of rights and of international law.

In the popular committes, we commit ourselves to non-violence and civil disobedience in our struggle to put an end to the Israeli occupation. Even though the crime was committed on colonised land, we see the killing of children as a disgraceful crime, whatever their nationality, sex, colour, race or religion.

Taking back our indecorous, free lives

There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of our minds

On February 13th, we women made a stand against the policies that are stifling our lives and that have brought about a progressive restriction of our rights and our freedom. We made our way through Piazza del Popolo, invaded the streets of Rome and pushed through to Montecitorio to "return to sender" the antiwomen lawas that have been passed in recent years by both centre-right and centre-left governments: undated resignation letters that new employees can be forced to sign, the law on assisted procreation, the raising of the pensionable age, the security package, and many others

On March 8th, we returned to the streets with the same message of placing at the centre of discussion the restribution of wealth among thouse who make profits and those who are paying for this crisis, among those who own real estate and those who have no home, between those who are paid millions and those who have no job.

We want to answer those who are trying to take away our autonomy filling public structions with "conscientious objectors" limiting the distribution of the moring after pill or supporting the privatisation of health care structures such as family planning clinics (see the proposed Tarzia law for the Lazio region) , structures which we would like to reform to meet our present needs.

We want to rebel against a culture that is used to control our bodies and our sexuality. From work to health, in fact, the only legitimate role for women is seen as that of wife and mother - though women are often forced to sign an open-dated resignation letter when they enter employment so that this can be used if they become pregnant.

We are living in a country of double standards, where the only model to be accepted and promoted is the heterosexual family, that very family in which, according to official statistics, most acts of violence against women are committed by husbands, partners and fathers. This is another reason to reject a precarious labour model - because it forces us to depend economically and culturally on a model of relationships that prevents us from choosing where, how, when and with whom to become or NOT to become mothers.

The same family-centred rhetoric that promotes and supports parenthood puts obstacles in the way of lesbians, single people, gays, transsexuals and all those who don't fit into the heterosexual, Catholic model.

It's the very same logic that on one hand stigmatises and criminalises sex workers, using the security package and moralistic campaigns and on the other promotes the use and imagery of women's bodies for male pleasure within the circles of power and elsewhere.

On March 8th we also took to the streets to unmask the racist policies of this government that takes advantage of the work of care providers, for the most part immigrant women and at the same time transforms them in "dangerous" protagonists of the "immigration emergency" or deprives them of their libery and makes them victims of violence within the centres for immigration and expulsion (CIE).

For all these reasons we were on the streets on March 8th, to make a stand for rights and freedom, because our desires don't have family or nation. We are not "decent Italians". We are casual workers, students, lesbians, trans. We are women who refuse the model of family-based, nationalist, Catholic, heterosexual welfare-

We want to reclaim our own voices and our own bodies, the streets, the night, our relationships. We demand rights, welfare, and autonomy..

For Freedom and Justice. Against Repression and the Death Penalty

For more than a month, we have been hearing news of uprising, multiplying and extending from Tunisia to Egypt, from Algeria to Yemen, from Libya to Bahrein. What we're seeing are enormous popular demonstrations againsgt despotic and corrupt regimes. Women and men, young and old are calling for bread and freedom, dignity and justice, social equality and democratic participation. .

As Women in Black against war, we feel the drama of the bloody repression that is causing hundreds of victims in these countries. Violent powers are waging a war against unarmed people.

The Iranian people, too, after thirty years of difficult life under the repression of the theocratic islamic government, are calling for democracy with the pacific action of the Green Movement. The response of the government has been bullets, prison, torture, and death sentences.

The recent terrible increase in death sentences and the establishment of unfair tribunals are, every day, causing the death of innumerable political prisoners. Based on reports coming out of Iran, from 1st to the 27th January 2011 106 executions have been carried out, that is, an average of 20 executions a week. Many more are awaiting execution.

For many months, a group of courageous mothers have been protesting, calling for the abolition of the death sentence, the freeing of political prisoners, punishment of those responsible for crimes committed in the last 31 years. The mothers meet every week in Laleh Park, in Teheran. (http://www.madaraneparklale.org/p/about-us.html). They are mothers in mourning - mothers of the martyrs of the last 32 years. They refuse to close their eyes to the loss of their children and demand the punishment of those who ordered and those who carried out mass executions, executions of individuals, torture and attacks on student residences since the 80s. In response, the regime has set its sights on them, detaining and arresting women to stifle their demands for justice.

The Italian network of Women in Black has known and supported this struggle for some time. On February 25, together with Amnesty International, we particpated in a press conference held at the International Women's House in Rome with Luisa Morgantini, Sabri Najafi and Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel peace prize laureate - women how have always fought for human rights despite the risks that this brings.

Together with the Mothers of Laleh Park, we call for:

• The freeing of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience.
  
• An end to the executions which in January and the first weeks of February alone have taken the lives of more than 100 people.
  
• The abolition of the death sentence.

We support the non-violent struggle of the mothers of Laleh Park and of the Iranian civil society. We will give voice to these women and make known their situation and their courage which is completely ignored by the media

Stop the Colonial Train

Women in Black, Italy support the international campaign against the building of a high speed train that will link Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, in which the Italian firm , Pizzarotti, is involved.

A report produced by the Israeli coalition of women for peace, as part of their research projectt Who profits?, shows that the train's route passes through the occupied territory and involves further losses of land for the Palestinian communities - who won't even be able to use the train. The construction in which Pizzarotti is taking part is illegal since international law prohibits the use of resources from an occupied territory by the occupying power for the benefit of its own citizens.

The choice of building in the occupied territory wasn't even necessary to the project. According to Dalit Baum, researcher with the Coalition of Women for Peace:

it is significant, even though not surprising to discover that Israeli planners found it easier to take land from the Palestinians and run the risk of being prosecuted for violations of international law rather than face the possible complaints of Israeli citizens who might object to the building of the train line close to their houses and the consequent devaluation of their real estate or the worsening of the air quality and the view from their windows. It seems that the internationally recognised borders of Israel are totally insignificant in the eyes of Israeli engineers and that they can cross them whenever it is more convenient or easier for their projects.

Alarm for Afghan Women: The Kabul government threatens to take control of women's refuges

The Italian coordination in support of Afghan women (CISDA) condemns the law promoted by the Afghan Council of Ministers in January 2011 according to which, within 45 days of the law being passed, management of women's refuges will be controlled by the Ministry of Women's Affairs, rather than the Afghan NGOs.

The decree is based on a previous decision of the Afghan Supreme Court - the most reactionary legislative body in the country - that defined it a Crime for a woman to leave her home and seek shelter in one of the refuges for abused women run by the NGOs.

The decision of the Afghan Supreme Court already restricted the possibilities for women victims of violence to appeal to judicial bodies.

Moreover, the law requires the closure of some refuges, the accompaniment of women by a mahram (male relative or husband), the teaching of Islan and the obligation of women to submit to continual "medical examinations" in order to monitor their sexual activity. The government affirms that management by the MoWA will guarantee a better administration of funds and a better choice of staff.

We maintain that this measure has been taken to satisfy fundamentalists and the Taliban, whith whom negotiations have been started. The refuges have been labelled by some as brothels and the choice has been made to bring them under control.

The consequences of this will be disastrous for the women victims of violence. :

• No male relative - and much less a husband - will accompany a woman to a refuge: in most cases, it is they who are the perpetrators of the violence from which the women want to escape.
• In Afghanistan, rape is reason for shame and for the repudiation of the woman. If the medical examination were to show that a woman has been raped, under government control, the woman would be condemned instead of being helped.
• If a woman were to escape from a forced marriage, once she arrives at the refuge she would be denounced by the government, since leaving home is considered a crime.
• Young women sent home would live a life of shame and marginalisation , if they are not killed, as is shown by various cases of stoning in different parts of the country in recent months.
• If the family were to ask for the return of the woman - whatever the reason, including a forced marriage, the staff of the refuge could not refuse. As if this were not enough, many women who have been in refuges will be accused of adultery within their community.
• Afghanistan is one of the most corrupt countries in the world: there will be no guarantee that the funds donated by international agencies for women victims of violence will be properly controlled.

The Karzai government, set up and maintained by the US-NATO occupation, is certainly not distinguished by its respect for human rights. :

• In March 2009 the Karzai government passed a law against women - particularly those from the Shiite community. According to this law, women could not refuse to have sexual relations with their husbands and they could not go to work, to the doctor, or to school without his permission.
• In March 2007, the Karzai government guaranteed an amnessty for all the crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan in the last 20 years.
• In January 2007, the journalist Parwez Kambashkh was condemned to death by a tribunal in Balkh, after being accused of blasphemy because of his ideas about equal rights for women. Though Parwez was pardoned following international pressure, dozens of other journalists operate in the same situation.
• In July 2006, the Karzai government reintroduced the “Ministry of Vice and Virtue”, - sadly well known under the Taliban regime.
• Moveover, Afghan human rights organisations denounce constant pressure from the government to legalise the “informal justice informale” (tribale) which provides for the stoning of women.

E l’Italia?

Between 2001 and 2011, the Italian government has invested hundreds of millions of Euro in a project to rebuild the justice system in Afghanistan. We call on the Italian government and the political forces that have supported - and still support - the military intervention in Afghanistan to explain how the funds for the rebuilding of the Afghan justice system have been spent, given that in recent years laws have been passed that penalise rather than favour human rights and the rights of Afghan women.

INFO CISDA: cell. 3336868938
COORDINAMENTO ITALIANO SOSTEGNO DONNE AFGHANE Onlus
BANCA POPOLARE ETICA – Agenzia Via Melzo, 34 – Milano
IBAN: IT64U0501801600000000113666 – SWIFT: CCRTIT2T84A



Afghan Women

To Be a Woman is to Fly

On February 13th (the day of the mass demonstrations against the decline of public life symbolised by Berlusconi) there were so many people - women and men in Rome's Piazza del Popolo that you just couldn't get in and once in couldn't get out. Cell phones weren't working, so it wasn't possible to meet up as we'd planned. The only thing to do was to relax, listen, and talk with those beside us in the Piazza.

The speeches from the platform weren't particularly great. It wasn't a real public meeting with professional speakers. There were quite a few readings, some of them boring - as reading often are when performed by people who don't know how to project their voices and maintain a rhythm. There were also some rather dubious speeches... but the demonstration was peaceful and relaxed, made up of people who, in all simplicity and without moralism, were standing up for their dignity, their right to live in a civilised country.

And it was a marvelous gathering. People of all sorts, tolerant acceptance of all political positions and all life style choices from nuns to sex workers. There was the feeling that you have at the theatre when the comedy ends - you didn't like it, it was all to overdone, vulgar and farsical. It didn't make you laugh, in fact it was a little nauseating like a joke in bad taste told over and over again by pimply adolescents.... Finally it ends. You can leave without disturbing everyone on your row and when you get outside in the fresh air, you realise that the play has bored and nauseated everyone.. you can see the it written on their relieved faces .

There wasn't just Piazza del Popolo. Some women who didn't manage to get in, started an improvised march throuh the streets of central Rome, which because more and more joyful and liberating and which arrived in front of the seat of government. They really enjoyed themselves. Free, indecorous, autonomous, not ready to delegate. Rebels are beautiful, because they have the scent of freedom.

The Rome women in black were in the Piazza and in the march. Those who managed to get into Piazza del Popolo unfurled their banner -Donna é volare (to be a woman is to fly)- in memory of a dear friend. It was a prophetic slogan. All the women who experienced that demonstration know that they won't turn back. It took us some years, but it's clear that we've taken flight and we really can't go back.

Solidarity with the Struggle of Civil Society on the Other Mediterranean Shore

In recent days we have all seen the tremendous courage of Egyptian civil society, which inspired by the revolution in Tunisia has fought - and continues to fight - to be free of a dictatorship that as lasted more than 30 years.

We use the words of the Seville Women in Black to express our admiration and solidarity.

From civil society in Tunisa and Egypt, enormous waves - tenacious, strong, and decided in their will for social just and freedom - have made the Mediterranean the great lady of the revolution for human rights. a revoultion of active non-violent resistance that reveals the daily reality of life under regimes that have been maintained and supported by both the US authorities and the powers of the EU. Regimes that translate the forms of neo-colonialism, that perpetuate contempt for civil society in support of geostrategic and social economic interests. A double standard, which our western world uses as a characteristic of patriarcal power. So, Egyptian civil society, thanks to the Sadat regime, followed by the Mubarak regime, has been living for decades as a political prisoner under the control of the explicit interests of Zionism within a framework of western interests.

Then, all at once, our western universe discovers that in the mediterranean world "on the other shore", there are societies that are lively and full of aspirations. Almost always, the information we've been given has favoured an image of stagnation and reactionary traditionalism. The media have seized everthing that feeds islamophobia, fear of "terrorism" among our people, rarely mentioning rebellions that succeeded over the years and remaining silent about the systematic violation of human rights.

This veil that covered and protected the US and EU puppet regimes, with measures that went from outrageous levels of aid to sales of arms to be used for repression; a veil cast over the violations of human rights that is only lifted in a few countries, when their goverments come into conflict with the interests of western countries; countries that then the West does not hesitate to threaten and occupy, creating a disaster for the lives of millions of women and men (Iraq, Afghanistan), or instigating civil wars (Rwanda, Ivory Coast).

And while we recognise that such policies are part of the right wing in western politics - whose identification with the culture of death is implicit in their defence of the capitalist, neoliberal economy - we are scandalised by the fact that so-called progressive sectors have favoured, in one way or another, the maintenance of these corrupt, dictatorial regimes (one example among the many: the parties led by Mubarak and Ben Ali are even today part of the Socialist International). With the argument of the "lesser evil" and the fight against "radical Islam", they contribute to the creation of a "demon" which facilitates the miitarisation of the world and of our minds, reinforcing the structures of patriarcal power based on violence and exclusion.

From our position of absolute refusal of any regime that stands in the way of free development of popular sovereignty and of the rights of women, and because of our conviction that every form of violence - including obviously social and economic inequality and sexist, racist, cultural and religious exclusion - generates oppression and violence, in particular towards women, we demand that:

All EU governments must immediately

• Explicitly condemn these regimes and their violations of human rights
• Stop the export of arms
• Show their support for the civil society without interference and with full respect for their sovereignty.
  

We express our complete solidarity with:

The greater part of the civilian populations of Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan.... and with the pacifist opposition in Israel who are mobilising to condemn their current political regimes.

Civilian populations, women and men, who will be able to take the road to the realisation of their demands for political, social and cultural freedom.

People who today in their uprising for human rights expose the many disturbing aspects of our democracies, calling upon us to reinforce the bonds of solidarity and banish from the Mediterranean those interests that are an obstacle to intercultural coexistence, and so to favour peace, social justice, and the emancipation of women and men from all types of oppression.

Work, Rights, Dignity

• The national contract

• Freedom to strike

• Freedom to join a union

• The right to free expression
  

These are necessary for today and for a more worthwhile future for all women and men.

On January 28th, The F.I.O.M union confederation called a national strike of works in the metal mechanics sector. Many other groups throughout Italy decided to take part - schools and universities, students and other workers and service providers.

The participation in the strike was not in the least ritual. It was not simple solidarity towards "others" but rather a mobilisation to defend the rights of all women and men. We are dealing with questions that affect all, that relate to the lack of prospectives, precariousness, the loss of union and social rights. The relevance of the current conflict was demonstrated when the referendum was heldc in Mirafiori on January 13th and 14th.

The amazing response of the workers (much greater than all predictions!) to the blackmail/referendum was an act of resistance and dignity that tells all of us that the absolute will of the company and the destruction of collective rights can be opposed.

As the women delegates of the F.I.O.M at the FIAT plant in Mirafiori, in Turin, in Naples said:

“in the factory and on the production lines there are many workers who report working conditions that are at the very limit of what can be tolerated. Speeding up working rhythms, moving the lunch break to the end of the shift, cutting break times, imposing 120 hours of overtime, penalising sick leave signifies […] the logic of super-exploitation imposed with blackmail and authoritarianism, [that] breaks bodies and minds, pushes people to desperation and humiliation”

The women of the F.I.O.M rightly claim the right to a life that is not exhausted in the work place, and they maintain that:

“work with rights and the choice of motherhood and family life cannot be counterposed: Work time should not eat up the the rest of life, productivity at all costs is not the banner of modernity.”

We want an economy that is centered on social and environmental justice, cooperation and peace.

Never Again - for Anyone

On the occasion of the Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27th 2011, the Women in Black in Bergamo wish to remember how Nazi and Fascist regimes that carried out the massacres, were born to oppose the rise in consciousness of the working classes.

We recall how the middle classes of the time, in fear of a redistribution of wealth, chose to entrust themselves to authoritarian figures, who - after national-socialist beginnings - invested in weapons and in war as a plan for development and dominion. We express our solidarity with the Palestinian people who suffer injustice and abuse and with those Israeli citizens who struggle beside them to stop the occupation.

In addition, we express our indignation and refusal for the current policies of governments that refinance ill considered and highly expensive military commitments.

• Governments that do not show wisdom and do not invest in health, education and employment opportunities for the new generations.
  
• Governments that ignore the protection of the natural and cultural environment of their countries.
  

We hope that with these actions it will be possible to influence choices for production that are coherent with the needs of Italy and of the environment.

Italian Women in Black, who for years have worked for the peace that comes from justice, express all our solidarity with the demonstrations planned in various Italian cities on 28th January 2011 by trade unions who are fighting for a change in the productive situation in Italy.

We would like to express our respect for FIAT workers and members of the F.I.O.M. union confederation who have taken a clear and dignified position.

For Jawaher - We are here with our hearts in Bil'in

Bil'in, a village in Palestine
Its land divided by the separation barrier built by Israel.

Bil’in - a village that resist that demands the return of its land



The Israeli court has ruled in their favour.

The barrier must be moved.
The sentence was handed down a year ago - the barrier is still there.


Every Friday, the people march, they go towards the "wall".
They go with flags and music.
They go because they are right.
They go because they won't give in.

Every Friday, soldiers fire tear gas from the hill
- sound bombs too - and not only.
Jawaher is dead.
She breathed in too much gas.
Her brother is dead too - -
He too marched against the wall.

The people weep, the people shout, but they don't give in.

While the world celebrated new year, Jawaher Abu Rahmeh, a 36 year old Palestinian woman, resident of Bil’in, was killed by the tear gas massively used by the Israeli occupation forces against peaceful, non-violent people - Palestinians, Israelis and internationals- who were demonstrating to stop the Wall and the occupation.

Jawaher demonstrated every Friday, marching towards the separation barrier that steals the land from Palestinian farms to be used for the construction of new Israeli colonies. Like many other Palestinian women, Jawaher era courageous, proud, and dignified.
Her mother was still mourning the loss of her beloved son, Bassem, killed two years ago by the Israeli army.

Now she must also mourn the loss of a beloved daughter. We must stand by the Abu Rahmeh family in this new, terrible moment of loss and sacrifice.

We cannot forget Jawaher and her struggle for freedom and the right to live in her own land.

Despite the brutality of the Occupation, the Palestinians do not give up their rights or their freedom. Peaceful, non-violent resistance is spreading in the villages and towns to put an end to:

The occupation
Illegal settlements and their expansion
The apartheid wall
The siege of Gaza
The racist politics that are imposed on the Palestinians in every day life.