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CNN LIVE EVENT/SPECIAL

America's New War: Afghan Women's Resistance Movement

Aired September 28, 2001 - 06:47   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: America's new war is raising U.S. awareness of the plight of women in Central Asia.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And CNN's senior Asia correspondent, Mike Chinoy, has some disturbing details now from Peshawar, Pakistan.

MIKE CHINOY, CNN SENIOR ASIA CORRESPONDENT: Carol, Leon, well before the activities of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan became a global issue, the Taliban's harsh treatment of women, the result of its extreme interpretation of Islam, was already a source of widespread global concern.

Despite continuing repression, though, a remarkable group of Afghan women have been carrying on a secret underground struggle against the Taliban. Here in Peshawar, we have met some of these activists. They shared with us their experiences and some remarkable videotapes they secretly shot under the noses of the Taliban regime.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHINOY (voice-over): Members of the Taliban's department of virtue beating a woman in the streets of Kabul earlier this month. Her crime: letting her veil slip from her face.

Such religious enforcers have official backing in Afghanistan, where repression of women has been a central feature of Taliban rule.

SAIMA KARIN, RAWA: What happened to women, I think it's unprecedented, not only in our history, but I think in the modern history of the world.

CHINOY: Her face covered to protect her identity, Saima Karin is a member of RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan.

CNN first told you about RAWA in the recent program "CNN Presents: Beneath the Veil." Today in a country of terror and violence, RAWA's 2,000 members in Afghanistan and Pakistan are still waging a desperate underground struggle against the Taliban.

KARIN: We believe the root cause of all current (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and miseries and all problems in Afghanistan is the domination of fundamentalists. CHINOY: In the Taliban's Afghanistan, this is a crime: teaching young girls to read. School and work for women are forbidden. RAWA activists continue to conduct such classes in secret.

KARIN: Afghan women are not what outside world can image them or can think of them. They love to learn. They love to be educated. They love to be something.

CHINOY: But it's a dangerous business.

KARIN: We have to train students how to make it through if they are stopped by Taliban on the way. We have to change the houses. We have to change the timings, or we have to even take a course at 6:00 in the morning.

CHINOY: Discovery can mean a beating. Membership in RAWA can mean death.

KARIN: They have already decreed their punishment, which is stoning to death for any member of RAWA if we're caught by the Taliban.

CHINOY: In a devastated country where the Taliban has made photographing human beings a religious crime, RAWA members have risked their lives to bring the world a glimpse of the regime's fanaticism. Here, a soccer game halted. Spectators ordered to pray.

Here a public execution. A man's throat is slit before a crowd in Kabul. Another man put to death, hung from a soccer goalpost. The bodies of these men displayed on a city thoroughfare.

RAWA has waged its struggle here in Pakistan too, running clinics and classes in Afghan refugee camps and facing regular threats from the Taliban.

KARIN: I have to be careful. I want to have long life to continue this work.

CHINOY: Work which Saima says will be necessary for many years to come whatever the outcome of a U.S. campaign against the Taliban.

KARIN: Our women especially not only physically killed, physically tortured, they are mentally killed. And they may forget about the physical pain, but it will take years and years to forget the mental and psychological pain.

CHINOY: Mike Chinoy, CNN, Peshawar, Pakistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: You can see encores presentations of "Beneath the Veil." The documentary airs tomorrow at 1:00 in the morning Eastern -- that's 10:00 p.m. Pacific -- and again Sunday at 4:00 in the afternoon Eastern, and that is right here on CNN.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.


 
 
 
 


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