French Parliament Hears Plight of Three Afghan Women
Three Afghan women, traveling under pseudonyms and wearing the all-enshrouding burqa, visited the French parliament last week in their campaign to raise international awareness about gender apartheid in their country. The women has visited the European parliament earlier that week, and visited France at the invitation of the President of the French Assembly, Raymond Forni. The women spoke of the atrocities committed against the women and girls of Afghanistan by the terrorist Taliban regime, including the story of a woman whose feet were beaten until they bled because the was wearing white shoes – the color of the Taliban flag. They pleaded that the visit be just the first step in a political campaign against the Taliban, and called for the French to exert pressure on Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which support the Taliban, and the United States. ““We took a risk coming here,” said one of the women, “but we don’t care because what we go through every day is like death, so real death doesn’t scare us. How else could we continue our struggle for the women of Afghanistan?”
6/19/2013 House Passes 20 Week Abortion Ban - Yesterday, the House of Representatives approved a nationwide abortion ban after 20 weeks gestation in a vote of 228 to 196. . . .
6/18/2013 Supreme Court Strikes Down Proof of Citizenship Voter Requirements - On Monday, the United States Supreme Court struck down an Arizona law requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship before being allowed register to vote.
In an opinion written [PDF] by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court ruled that the Arizona statute violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA, also known as the "Motor Voter Law") of 1993, which created a federal form that individuals can mail in to register to vote in federal elections. . . .
