VIDEO: The bravest woman in Afghanistan

Posted by CODEPINK Staff

If you're looking for inspiration this morning, look no further than this UK Guardian's Comment Is Free column by 31-year-old Malalai Joya, one of the bravest women in Afghanistan, and video interview (below) with her from the UK Telegraph.

Joya, elected to the Afghan parliament in 2005 but suspended in 2007 after speaking out against the continued leadership and tyranny of war lords and extremists (under the Karzai government), has been living in hiding for the past few years amid numerous assassination attempts. She travels with a security team and secretly moves from house to house every night. Despite the constant threat on her life, Joya continues to speak out through her writing and is currently in the UK to promote her new book, Raising My Voice, due out this fall.

Check out this excerpt from her column and the video interview below. In both, she critiques the U.S.' so-called mission to liberate Afghanistan as a "big lie."

Almost eight years after the Taliban regime was toppled, our hopes for a truly democratic and independent Afghanistan have been betrayed by the continued domination of fundamentalists and by a brutal occupation that ultimately serves only American strategic interests in the region...The Afghan people want peace, and history teaches that we always reject occupation and foreign domination. We want a helping hand through international solidarity, but we know that values like human rights must be fought for and won by Afghans themselves.

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9/25500650001?isVid=1&publisherID=1138077173