Women’s rights the focus of embassy talks in Afghanistan
via Ottawa Citizen (Canada)
CanWest News Service
Published: Tuesday, August 01, 2006
KABUL, Afghanistan — Canadian Embassy officials here have entered into talks with the Afghan administration over plans for a government department with the same name as the former ministry for the Taliban’s vicious religious police.
Under the Taliban, which held power from 1996 to 2001, police operating under the ministry for the prevention of vice and the promotion of virtue beat women in the streets for going outside without a close male relative, beat men for keeping their beards too short, and enforced bans on women working and girls going to school. Now, President Hamid Karzai’s cabinet has approved the creation of a department of vice and virtue, and the plan is expected to go before Parliament when it reconvenes later this summer.
“We are meeting with the Afghan government to express our concern, to ensure it’s consistent with the Afghanistan constitution, which would not abide any of the activity by the ministry of vice and virtue, back in the days of the Taliban — that is the repressive activity,” said Canada’s ambassador to Afghanistan, David Sproule.
“We’re trying to establish the details of this. We’re making it our business to speak with the Afghanistan government on this, making sure they understand the importance the Canadian government places on human rights, and particularly the rights of women.”
The planned department reflects a political struggle between Afghans seeking a moderate Islamic republic and “those who have a picture of some sort of 12th-century feudal society,” said Col. Mike Capstick, head of the Canadian Strategic Advisory Team.
