Adil Najam
This photograph was published in Daily Times, January 12, 2009. The caption read:
“Women are not allowed in the market,” reads a banner displayed at the entrance of a market in Mingora. Taliban have banned the entry of women in markets and ordered the killing of women who violate the ban. Most shop owners have sold or shut down their businesses because of falling sales following the restriction.
What would have made this tragic depiction comical had the context been different is that from the picture this is clearly a textile and cloth market – the type of market where, in Pakistan, you would expect most customers to be women!
Mr. Murtad, that may be what yo and your Taliban friends believe your religion to be, but that is not so in Islam and for us Muslims.
What have they done to my religion?
The shopkeepers have done this in order to avoid their shops being bombed by the Taliban.
I hope Pakistanis now realize that this is indeed their war.
I am surprised that anyone is surprised by this banner or its affects. Surely ‘banning women’ is what the Taliban (or “enemy forces.” as the British Army now have to say) is all about?
Whilst they were in power in Afghanistan, the Taliban had an appalling record of discriminating against women (especially Widows or Single Women), so now that they freely operate in many parts of Pakistan, why is anyone surprised that they still promulgate these policies?
If they were sane then they wouldn’t believe in these insane ideas, but they are not, so they do.
@Murtad King
Ur Name says it all .