Remembering 9/11

I’ve tried to write this blog eleven times, but I can’t find the words to express the fear and terror I felt that September morning. My oldest child lived within shouting distance of the Lawrence Livermore Lab and the other kids lived close to San Francisco.

My first thought was for the safety of my children and grandchildren, my second for the people trapped in the Twin Towers, and my third for the safety of my country. As the day went on, I sat on the porch gazing at the sky in wonderment, knowing that not a plane flew in American skies due to hatred directed at the United States from people I didn’t understand.

My oldest son’s best friend is from the West Bank, his parent’s friends of Arafat. I knew a little about the Islamic culture from them and from the Mosque, located just blocks from my home. I was angry at the women I saw dressed in burkas’, hidden behind black cotton, during the hot summer before 9/11.

I had worked long and hard during the 70s for women’s liberation, not only for myself but for my daughter. I wanted her to have the same freedoms that men have, I needed her to have the option of being whatever she wanted and we achieved those goals.

What makes me angry now, is as hard as we fought we have let Islamic women down, by not fighting for their rights around the world. 

Clip: http://freesakineh.org/

An Iranian official has confirmed that the government halted the death sentence by stoning of a woman charged with adultery, but he reiterated that she was still facing murder charges.

The official, Ramin Mehmanparast, a spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, was the highest-ranking Iranian official to formally acknowledge that Iran had suspended the woman's stoning, a sentence that provoked an international outcry and intensified criticism of Iran's human rights record.

Mr. Mehmanparast made the comments at a weekly news conference here on Tuesday, saying that officials were reviewing the adultery charges against the woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani. But he said officials were still moving ahead with sentencing Ms. Ashtiani on charges that she assisted in the murder of her husband. A conviction on that charge could result in the death sentence or a prison term.

Iran had previously indicated it had lifted Ms. Ashtiani's stoning sentence, even as it gave indications she would instead be executed by hanging.

Ms. Ashtiani was convicted of adultery in 2006, but the charges of abetting murder emerged just weeks ago, as Iranian officials responding to a fusillade of criticism from human-rights groups and foreign leaders sought to tilt focus away from the adultery charges and portray Ms. Ashtiani as a killer.
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We cannot bring back the victims of 9/11, but we can help one woman in Iran who is facing death due to Sharia law. We need to remember the young female children who had acid thrown in their faces for attending school in Afghanistan, and the two teenagers whose father killed them for dating outside their culture.

There are so many instances of suppression of women they are too numerous to count. On this day, let us remember the fallen, and the subjugated women around the world.

God bless them all…