Frontline
November 1998
Cover Story

Match for the mullahs

They may be small in number, as yet, but RAWA activists are not shy of challenging the fanatics out on the streets

(We reproduce below, a news report published by a Pakistani newspaper on a RAWA demonstration)
 Police restrain Taleban attacking RAWA procession
(The News, April 29,1998)

PESHAWAR: Police resorted  to teargas shelling and baton charge Tuesday to disperse Afghan Taleban who 
 attacked a procession of Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) and caused injuries to several women.

The Peshawar police, which accompanied the procession right from Shaheen Town to the Defense Colony, swung into action soon after the Taleban attacked the process-ionists and chased and beat them up. The police also arrested 13 of them.

The RAWA procession comprising some 250 women and girl students of the local Afghan schools was attacked near Tambwano Chowk on Jamrud Road by a group of over a dozen stick–wielding Taleban. At least 10 women received injuries, three of whom were rushed to hospital for first aid.

The women showed extreme courage by raising highly charged slogans against the ‘fundamentalists’ and retaliated with sticks and stones in self–defence rather than running for shelter. They were joined by some of the men, both Afghans and Pakistanis, accompanying the procession. “We wanted to convey to the ‘fundamentalists’ that women can fight for their rights,” remarked an emotional RAWA leader Nasima Bareen. The attackers were overpowered by police in no time.

Mindful of the wrath of the Taleban and other Afghan groups, the RAWA organizers had arranged bundles of sticks in advance for observing the “6th black anniversary” of what the organization termed “swarming of fundamentalist criminals into Kabul on April 28,1992.”

Despite tension and fears of recurrence of the happening, the processionists did not disperse and reached their destination chanting slogans and playing patriotic songs through a loudspeaker. “Nothing can be achieved in today’s Afghanistan without sacrifice,” commented another RAWA leader, Jamila Habib.

The situation would have taken yet another ugly turn had the 300 stick–wielding Taleban both Afghans and Pakistanis from the nearby Jamia Imdad–ul–Uloom Islamia of Masjid–I–Darwish reached the scene of incident on time. After having heard about the incident, the Taleban rushed there but by then the Afghan women had dispersed peacefully.

The angry Taleban blocked the main Peshawar–Jamrud road near Peshawar Club for sometime and searched the passenger buses for the Afghan women who took part in the procession. The Taleban procession marched to the Tambwano Chowk and disrupted traffic on the busy University Road.

The prominent feature of the RAWA procession, which traversed a distance of two kilometres, was the hanging of the effigies of five Afghan leaders atop a vehicle. They included Taleban spiritual leader Mulla Mohammad Omar, former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Hezb–I–Wahdat chief Ustad Karim Khalili and Uzbek warlord Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum.

The RAWA leaders said these Afghan leaders “playing in foreign hands” were responsible for the on–going genocide in Afghanistan. The Taleban chief Mullah Omar was depicted as a “pirate.”

The Afghan women were all praise for the local police who took timely action to trace down the attacking Taleban despite the fact that no proper permission had been secured for staging the demonstration in Peshawar by RAWA.

It was the Quetta–based RAWA’s third show in the city. The main target of the speeches and sloganeering of the processionists were the Taleban, who were blamed as “stooges of Pakistan”.

The young schoolgirls were more vocal in condemning the Afghan leaders. “Marg bar (death for) Taleban, marg bar Rabbani, marg bar Hekmatyar, marg bar Masud, marg bar Khalili, marg bar Dostum, marg bar Sayyaf, marg bar Akbari” were the slogans which echoed all the way on the route of the procession. The RAWA members also condemned the alleged interference by Pakistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Saudi Arabia in Afghanistan’s affairs.    

Behroz Khan 


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