Over 300 protesters (mostly women) who got out on the streets of Kabul to protest the recently passed conservative marriage law in Afghanistan were pelted by stones. 

The Afghanistan government recently passed a law that forbids women from refusing to have sex with their husbands. The law, quietly signed last month, says a husband can demand sex with his wife every four days unless she is ill or would be harmed by intercourse. It also regulates when and for what reasons a wife may leave her home alone.

Though it would apply only to the country’s Shiites — 10 percent to 20 percent of Afghanistan’s citizens — many fear it marks a return to Taliban-style oppression of women. Critics of the law say it effectively legalizes rape within marriage and is a return to Taliban-style rule, says a CBC report here.

Picture Courtesy: www.cbc.ca

FULL Story here.

We at Breakthrough and Bell Bajao condemn both the law and the pelting of stones on the protesters. At the same time, we are proud of the womens rights groups, human rights groups and all those women and men who came together to support this protest.

Show your support to these women by forwarding this report/ blog post and raising awareness about this issue. Change your status messages on your Facebook, Orkut, My Space, Twitter pages to: "I denounce the Afghanistan-Marriage law that legalizes marital rape, strangulates women’s rights and brings Taliban back to Afghanistan". Write more blog posts about this issue.

Public outcry and Interntaional pressure is the only way by which we can help those women in Afghanistan fight this draconian law.

Karzai is already bowing to international calls to scrap Afghan ‘rape’ law. Let’s keep the pressure up.