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How should this be handled?

Parents of Jailed Americans Appeal to Taliban Leader for 'compassion'
By Kathy Gannon Associated Press Writer
Published: Aug 23, 2001


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - The parents of two American women imprisoned in Afghanistan on charges of preaching Christianity in this deeply devout Muslim nation apologized "if there is anything wrong that our children have done," a Taliban official said Thursday.
They also made a passionate appeal to the Taliban's reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, to release their children, Sohail Shaheen, a spokesman at the Afghan Embassy in neighboring Pakistan, told The Associated Press.

"They gave me a letter they had written to our supreme leader. It was an appeal to see their children on compassionate grounds," Shaheen said.

Gesturing to a deep brown couch, Shaheen said, "They sat right there and the father of one of the American women said: 'We apologize if there is anything wrong that our children have done.'"

The parents did not make any reference to preaching Christianity, Shaheen said.

The women, along with six other foreign aid workers and 16 Afghan staff of Shelter Now International, have not been seen since their arrest more than two weeks ago on charges of promoting Christianity. The aid group denies the charges.

The mother of one imprisoned woman and the father of the other woman submitted their visa applications on Wednesday, along with the letter to Omar and several letters for their daughters, Shaheen said.

"I have personally forwarded everything to the authorities in Kabul," he said.

The women, single and in their mid-20s, have been identified as Dana Curry and Heather Mercer. The other six jailed foreigners have been identified as Germans George Taubmann, Margrit Stebnar, Kati Jelinek and Silke Duerrkopf; and Australians Peter Bunch and Diana Thomas.

Three Western diplomats, who returned from Kabul on Tuesday after a week of trying unsuccessfully to see the jailed aid workers, also submitted fresh visa applications.

It is unlikely authorities in the beleaguered Afghan capital will deal with the applications before Saturday, because Friday is the Muslim Sabbath.

Red Cross officials in Kabul denied reports that they have received permission from the Taliban to visit the detained workers.

On Wednesday, a Taliban official outside the vice and virtue ministry in Kabul said the eight foreign aid workers have worn the same clothes for the last four days and had refused to accept a change of clothing.

They also refused to eat one day, he said, but relented when the Taliban brought food from their homes in Kabul.

He speculated that the group refused to change their clothes as a form of protest at their detention and at the Taliban's refusal to allow diplomats to visit them.

The Taliban authorities in Kabul have refused to say when their investigation will be completed, but they say it has expanded to include other aid organizations.

The U.N. World Food Program is the only other foreign aid organization mentioned by the Taliban as possibly being implicated in proselytizing charges. The agency has called the allegations "baseless."

The program said it works with 150 humanitarian groups in Kabul, but does not take responsibility for any of their actions.

The WFP provides the food and aid groups distribute it to hundreds of thousands of hungry Afghans throughout the country, where a devastating drought and relentless fighting has created a humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations.

Shelter Now International is operated by Vision for Asia, a Christian organization based in Germany. Its workers were described as missionaries by the U.S.-based Shelter Now International, which shares the name but has no affiliation.

From the offices of Shelter Now International in Kabul, the Taliban have confiscated compact discs and Christian material translated into local languages. The Taliban also say they have confessions from the detained workers.
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How should we handle the jailing of our countrymen and allies who are off on humanitarian missions who are jailed and unfairly treated by a tyrannical government in the name of censorship?

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well, it's not like you can cut off diplomatic relations... if it's like that, then people should be advised not to go because if they do and they get in trouble, there's nothing that can be done to help them (remember the US attempt to free teh hostages in Tehran; that didn't go very well). The place is a vile shithole.

EDIT: so it made sense

Last edited by Smug Git on 08-23-2001 at 03:23 PM

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quote:

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How should this be handled?

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HA, beat Spooky to the interesting political thread... that'll teach him to think of a good answer and then write it down fully.

Ooh, 200 posts. Watch out paint and wonder, I'm a comin'...

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What should America do? Well, there is not much we can do short of the diplomatic contacts with the people in charge. When one of our citizens goes to another country and breaks their laws, we must expect that they will be paying the price for breaking the law.
Stupid girls!
Classic! well to do christians running around the world trying to convert everyone...Well, thats the price of such stupid behavior. I hope they come home soon but if they dont? Well, I would imagine its a risk they knew....

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gazin
What should America do? Well, there is not much we can do short of the diplomatic contacts with the people in charge.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gazin
snip

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Originally posted by euphorbia
there is no proof they did anything...and I’m sure the odds of them getting a fair trial is against them considering the history and character of the Taliban.

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quote:

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Originally posted by euphorbia



Hold on there little lady, there is no proof they did anything...and I’m sure the odds of them getting a fair trial is against them considering the history and character of the Taliban.
Cutting off humanitarian to countries ruled by tyrants would only punish the poor who are already victimized, going over there and putting a bullet in the head of every Taliban member we saw...well that wouldn’t be respectful of their "culture"...a "culture" by the way that allowed men to stone a woman to death in the street because while driving her sleeve slipped up her arm exposing it.

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When you visit a foreign country you better know the laws and the ways..being an ignorant american is not a good excuse.

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Originally posted by Gazin




When you visit a foreign country you better know the laws and the ways..being an ignorant american is not a good excuse.
A fair trial? Its surely not going to be fair but we dont run the world...

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quote:

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Originally posted by euphorbia



*snip*

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oooh. low blow, don'tcha think Hell? she was being perfectly polite and you have to start slinging insults across the board. tsk tsk.

i can see her point perfectly: being ignorant of the law does not change the fact that you broke it. that is pretty much standard no matter what country you're from. and this is purely assumption, but i would bet dollars to donuts that those people knew exactly what they were doing. they were on a missionary movement kick, and thought that they were gonna bring jesus to the masses. i think they deserve whatever they get, and the United States should stay out of it. i wish i had the same power against jehovah's witnesses.

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A less awful version of this happened when that American student got flogged for vandalism in Singapore. Clinton managed to get the number of strokes reduced, but the fact was that the bloke broke laws in someone else's country. Can we expect different treatment because we are from a more lenient nation ourselves? Again, I would have thought that the answer was not to go there if you weren't prepared to face their justice system, even if it seems unfair and/or corrupt.

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Similarly, there is an English bloke on death row in Florida whose appeals have been turned down although the case would look very shaky tried in England. Well, he wasn't tried in England, so he has to live with Florida justice...

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Well shit, if they are treated as fairly there as they are being treated by you guys they are pretty much fucked. You would think that the same mentality that governs the Taliban would be hard to find in enlightened people such as yourselves.
[sarcasm] those humanitarian aid workers deserve what they get because they should have known better to want to help people in a country like Afghanistan (which is all that they are known to have done)…the woman of Afghanistan deserve what they get for being a part of a country (even though they are not allowed to leave their own houses much less the country) ruled by the Taliban.[/sarcasm]
I see, it all makes perfect sense now.

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Originally posted by Smug Git
Similarly, there is an English bloke on death row in Florida whose appeals have been turned down although the case would look very shaky tried in England. Well, he wasn't tried in England, so he has to live with Florida justice...

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quote:

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Originally posted by euphorbia
*snip*

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quote:

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Originally posted by euphorbia



Being an ignorant American? Like you are being? You don’t know that they didn’t know about the laws, as a matter of fact I am sure it is mandatory that they be briefed on them, also all of these people were not Americans, some are Aussies and some German...while I know contempt for country is in style, eagerness to insult it at the cost of fact makes you look as ignorant as anyone you may be calling ignorant..

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Euphorbia, you have such passion for things, maybe you should join amnesty international or some great organization like that, maybe you could actually help save the world, it needs it. All the oppressed and wrongly accused etc..you should go to washington or somewhere where your zealousness is appreciated. As the world stands now, there is much to do. Facts are facts, the wolrd is full of countries with their own rules.

Over the years I have seen many cases where people of free, or first world nations end up in the prisons of foreign countries, it happens on a daily basis, and a lot of the time there is just nothing to be done.

Does anyone remember the kid who was caned a few years back? I cant remember the country, Thailand I think, but anyway, we could as a country do nothing to save or stop the public flogging of this American 19 year old kid. He broke there laws (vandalism) and he paid the price. It was tough to see it happen, but what else was there to do?

You travel into Indonesia with just a marijuana seed or a roach and you could get life or even death. Ya, you better know what your doing if your traveling the world. Being American, or of a similar free country holds no power in most of the wolrd, if anything it can be a burden.
And missionaries? People trying to cram their religion down others throat? And in a Muslim nation? Well, this is just plain stupidity and arrogance and I have very little sympathy. I have some compassion for the results of their zealous behavior, but such is the price of their beliefs.

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what do you think they expected to happen, euphorbia? please, enlighten me. what do you think they were trying to accomplish?

they waltzed into a hostile, foreign environment, and expected to just wave their magic christian wands and make everything better? again, i'm just assuming, but i think that they went in with full intention of getting caught, and thinking that their respective embassies would get them out of it. it's a fucking propaganda stunt. they wanted media coverage to "raise awareness" of how things are handled there.

on the flipside, even if they actually expected to really do some good, they went about it in a completely naive and reckless way, and should still be held accountable for breaking the law. they were aware of the risks when they went into it.

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LOL...imagine a briefing about Mexico! LOL! Ye