Page 264 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

254 Chapter 10

were spoken highly of for "providing security" at polling and ballot counting
location^.^
The elections were taken as a "demonstration of how much the country has
changed since the ruling Taliban were toppled."5 News organizations like CIW
focused on newly acquired voting rights for women, among other achievements.
The continued subjugation and repression of women on the part of the Northern
Alliance, however, was often lost or downplayed in the praise. By 2005, the
New York Times conceded that Afghanistan had fallen "out of the headlines," as
news organizations became more concerned with events unfolding in Iraq and
elsewhere. Stories about post-Taliban repression became less a focus of report-
ing after the end of major U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan in late 2001.
Contrary to official propaganda, the story of Ali Mohaqiq Nasab reveals a
great deal about the state of Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. As an edi-
tor for Haqooq-i-Zan (an Afghan women's magazine), Ali consistently took a
stand against conventional cultural norms relegating women to the status of sec-
ond-class citizens. He criticized harsh government punishments, such as the
stoning to death those who abandon Islam, and the mandatory punishment of
100 lashes for adultery. Ali also took issue with the belief that men and women
are unequal before the law.
As someone who spoke out against corporal punishment and legally sanc-
tioned sexual discrimination, Ali's challenges were, and continue to be consid-
ered a serious threat to the legitimacy of the new conservative Islamic Republic
of Afghanistan. Ah's experience is just one of the many recent examples of what
happens to those who are charged with spreading "un-Islamic materials" and
"blasphemy."6 After a Presidential advisor brought charges against him, Ali's
case was taken to the Afghan Supreme Court, where he was tried for violating a
2004 media law signed by Hamid Karzai which banned from publication any
materials considered an insult to Islam. The prosecutor in Ali's trial originally
pushed for the death sentence, intending the case to be "a lesson for him and
others" of what happens when one challenges traditional interpretations of
"proper" adherence to the principles of slam.^
Fortunately, Ali was not sentenced to death, although the Afghan Supreme
Court did sentence him to two years in prison for exercising little more than
what would be considered a standard free speech right in other countries. An
equally extreme attempt to punish Abdul Ralunan, an Afghan who converted
from Islam to Christianity, was also seen in 2006. Rahman was arrested after
being charged with violating the Afghan constitution, which, based upon Sharia
(Islamic law), mandated that those who reject Islam receive the death penalty.
Such was the harsh reality of day-to-day existence in what USA Today referred
to as the "freshly minted democracy" of ~f~hanistan.' Indeed, the idea, pre-
sented in media framing, that Afghanistan is on the march toward democracy is
an unrealistic whitewash of the repressive reality the Afghan people have en-
dured in terms of the growth of state terror, and coercion, escalating warlord
violence, social deterioration, and increasing attacks against women.