Gender Apartheid

* “Taliban Shows Off Buddha Rubble” (March 27) quotes a Taliban official as saying, “We are very disappointed that the international community doesn’t care about the suffering people but they are shouting about the stone statues of Buddha.” Quite the contrary! Mavis Leno and the Feminist Majority Foundation have been working tirelessly for years to expose the oppressive gender apartheid imposed on Afghani women by the Taliban regime. These policies are tantamount to the racial apartheid formerly in South Africa but receive scant attention or action.

The article reported, “The Taliban imposes a strict interpretation of Islam over the 95% of Afghanistan it controls.” The Taliban misrepresents the religion of Islam in order to justify its brutal oppression of women. The word must go out that gender apartheid is happening in Afghanistan and that these human rights abuses are not acceptable.

LINDA PULS McGUIRE

Manhattan Beach