Malalai Joya Update

Please contact your members of Congress, asking them to go on record in support of Malalai Joya's reinstatement in Afghanistan's parliament (as called for by Human Rights Watch and others). In other tragic news, another brave Afghan woman who criticized the country's warlords and drug lords, Peace Radio's Zakia Zaki, has been killed.

From the Defense Committee for Malalai Joya:

On June 6, 2007, police in Herat province in West of Afghanistan stopped hundreds of Joya supporters to stage their peaceful protest demonstration in the center of the city.

Malalai Joya's supporters had planned a demonstration in front of Sports Stadium in center of Herat city in protest to Malalai Joya's suspension. Despite the fact that they had been permitted by the related authorities a day back, before the people gathered in the mentioned area all the routes leading there were blocked by tens of armed police to prevent the demonstration. ...

The organizers of this demonstration claimed that they had also been threatened several times by unknown people to refrain from this protest and a number of warlord authorities are responsible for intervention in this peaceful movement in support of Malalai Joya. ...

It is worth mentioning that earlier a similar protest of Malalai Joya's supporters in Kunar province was stopped by the head of security of that province.