THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2015 INTERNATIONAL From AK47s to drones, Afghans ‘war rugs’ reflect bloody decades

KABUL: More than three decades of war Kalashnikovs also feature. The US-led war Haref Fazli, another Chicken Street rug have damaged Afghanistan’s once-thriving in Afghanistan brought with it a flood of seller, said that just as traditional weavers carpet industry, but weavers are tapping expats-aid workers, diplomats and security depicted the natural world of flowers and into the bloody past to boost their fortunes contractors-bringing boom times for car- animals that surrounded them, so weavers with “war rugs” depicting guns, tanks and pet sellers. Now the expat population is now are showing war, because war is what warplanes. On Chicken Street, the most falling fast, the rug industry is struggling has surrounded them for more than three famous street in Afghanistan during the and the transformation in styles is an decades. “From long ago the carpet “hippie trail” tourist days of the late 60s and attempt to attract more business from a weavers would weave the map of 70s and still the place to come for souvenirs, dwindling band of foreigners. Afghanistan on rugs as a symbol of the some of the carpets in the shops look like country, but when war began, the war ele- pages of the country’s wartorn history. Rugging the changes ments such as guns, tanks and so on were Since the Soviet Union invaded in 1979 A carpet showing the map of Afghanistan added on the rugs,” he said. Carpets have Afghanistan has been in a state of near-con- with US fighter planes around it and the been a main source of income for millions stant conflict, and this strife is woven into words “terrorism”, “Pakistan”, “China”, “USA” of Afghans during the years of war, but the fabric-literally of the woollen rugs. and “Britain” costs between $30 and $300 business and sales have dropped drastically Helicopters, tanks, Kalashnikovs, grenades, depending on its quality. Mohammad as foreigners have left. the Americans’ distinctive B-52 bombers Anwar, 62, who has been in the business for Political uncertainty following a disput- and even drones form the designs, in place over 40 years, says designs have to keep up ed presidential election last year and an of the traditional patterns of landscapes and with demand. “These rugs with pictures of array of other daunting problems, includ- flowers. One has a map of Afghanistan with war in them are for gifts. Foreigners buy ing a resilient Taliban insurgency and “Tora Bora” marked-the suspected moun- them and keep them as a reminder of what widespread corruption, have also badly hit tain hideout of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin kind of country they have been to,” he said. the carpet business. But Mohammad Kabir Laden, from where he fled the US-led inva- Foreign soldiers used to be the main buyers, Raouf, 58, another seller, is hopeful that sion in late 2001. he said, but now very few of them remain the new artistic transformation of patterns Another carries a solemn reminder of after NATO’s drawdown of forces. NATO end- will help bring the business back on track. the 9/11 attacks that prompted the inva- ed its combat mission on December 31 after “The war has had some good impact on sion, showing the World Trade Center’s 13 years of fighting the Taliban insurgency in the rug industry too, people have become twin towers with planes nearly hitting Afghanistan and downsized its forces from a more creative,” Raouf said. “There are many them, overlaid with Afghan and US flags peak of 130,000 in 2012 to about 17,000, varieties of rugs in the market nowadays, and a peace dove. Carpets with pictures of who will focus on training the Afghan police they draw pictures, war elements, many KABUL: A carpet bearing images of weaponry, military vehicles and air- Soviet troops withdrawing from and army and conducting a limited counter- different designs just to attract people.” he craft is pictured inside a shop on Chicken Street in Kabul. —AFP Afghanistan leaving behind tanks and terrorism mission. said. —AFP

After beef ban, Hindu groups force Rapist’s views reflect abattoirs to close : Members of a Hindu nationalist group have forced several abattoirs in the Indian state of to shut after a law was passed banning the beef trade there, a leader of the group and a those of many in India lawyer for meat traders said yesterday. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or World Hindu Council, a nationalist group linked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party, acted after winning a court order to stop the killing of bulls and bullocks. “Members of the VHP came to Indian men ‘blame women for rape’ abattoir late at night and asked us to stop the slaughter, showing the copy of the High Court order,” said Mohammad Ali Qureshi, president of the Bombay Suburban Beef Dealers NEW DELHI: When a condemned killer said Heinous view ment will be able to block the film but the confessions, saying they’d been tortured into Association. the woman he and others brutally gang- It’s a view that Sangwan hears all too often. legal wrangling will most likely delay its admitting their involvement. Legal appeals Deonar, on the outskirts of Mumbai, is India’s largest abattoir. The raped on a New Delhi bus was responsible “It’s a heinous view to hold, but it’s the view of screening in India. The brutality, and perhaps against their death sentences are pending in beef trade is mainly controlled by minority Muslims, raising concern for what had happened to her, his comments our religious leaders, our community leaders, the fact that the gang rape occurred on a the Supreme Court. In response to the 2012 that the ban is driven by Modi loyalists pursuing a Hindu agenda. were shocking in their callousness and lack our legislators,” she said. The country’s women moving bus in a posh New Delhi neighbor- attack and the widespread public protests it President Pranab Mukherjee last week gave his assent to the of remorse. But the underlying view has wide aren’t surprised either. “A lot of Indian men hood, galvanized this country of 1.2 billion, provoked, India’s government rushed through Maharashtra Animal Preservation Bill, which had been pending for acceptance in India. Blaming women for rape think this way. They don’t have any empathy where sexual violence is rampant. The woman legislation doubling prison terms for rapists to 20 years, extending a ban on the killing of cows, considered sacred is what hundreds of millions of men here are or they are brought up in such a way that they and a male friend were returning home from 20 years and criminalizing voyeurism, stalking by Hindus, to bulls and bullocks. The law calls for up to five-years jail taught to believe. And the code for women don’t feel anything for women. They feel that seeing a movie at an upscale mall when they and the trafficking of women. for anyone found in possession of beef, according to media reports. in this country is simple: Dress modestly, women are only for sex and to be thrown were tricked by the attackers into getting on But while laws can change quickly, mind- But the state government - led by a Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party don’t go out at night, don’t go to bars and away,” said Bhavleen Singh, an 18-year-old the bus, which the men had taken out for a sets do not. India’s Parliament held a stormy - said it could take a week to implement the law, prompting the VHP clubs, don’t go out alone. If you break the student at Delhi University. joyride. debate yesterday on whether the film should to petition the Bombay High Court on Tuesday for an immediate code, you will be blamed for the conse- ban. “Why wait for another 5 to 6 days, just for paper formalities and quences. the final draft?” asked Vyankatesh Abdeo, all-India secretary of the When one of the four men sentenced to VHP. “If we would have waited thousands of cattle would have been death for the high-profile gang rape of the slaughtered.” Attacks on the trade have intensified in Maharashtra woman in 2012 was quoted in a new docu- since the BJP came to power 10 months ago. Modi himself criticized mentary as saying “a girl is far more responsi- the previous government for promoting a “pink revolution to butch- ble for rape than a boy,” he was repeating er cattle and export meat”. something community and religious leaders Acting on the VHP’s appeal, Justice V.M. Kanade on Tuesday in this nation of 1.2 billion routinely say. “A ordered the state to ensure that killing of bulls and bullocks is decent girl won’t roam around at 9 o’clock at stopped, according to a copy of the order seen by Reuters. Meat cen- night. ... Housework and housekeeping is for ters across the state, including Deonar, have stopped operating, said girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night Sagheer Khan, a lawyer for All Maharashtra Cattle Merchant doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes,” Association. Up to 95 percent of the large-sized cattle slaughtered in Mukesh Singh said in the documentary, Deonar were bulls or bullocks, with the rest being water buffaloes, “India’s Daughter,” meant to be shown on whose killing is legal. Beef dealer Qureshi said the ban would cost Sunday, International Women’s Day, in India many jobs and push up prices of buffalo meat. —Reuters and several other countries. Western influences But how different were the convicted 450 die in China’s rapist’s words from comments that Manohar Lal Khattar, the top elected official of mainly Muslim Haryana state made last year? “If a girl is dressed decently, a boy will not look at her in Xinjiang region the wrong way,” Khattar told reporters, “Freedom has to be limited. These short BEIJING: More than 450 people were killed in China’s restive main- clothes are Western influences. Our country’s ly Muslim Xinjiang region last year, a rights group said-with three tradition asks girls to dress decently.” The times as many deaths among members of the Uighur minority convicted rapist learned only what he has than ethnic Han Chinese. Xinjiang has seen a wave of unrest, heard leaders in his community say, said labeled by authorities as “terrorism” and blamed on “separatists”, Jagmati Sangwan, a women’s rights activist which has sometimes spread to other parts of China. Information who heads the All India Democratic Women’s in the area is strictly controlled by authorities, and the Washington- Association. “This man is just following the based Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) used data from example our leaders are setting for our NEW DELHI: Indians wait for a bus at the bus stop where the victim of a deadly gang rape had boarded on Dec 16, Chinese and overseas media reports for its analysis, giving ranges young men,” she said. 2012, in New Delhi, India. —AP for most of its figures. In 2009 when a rightwing Hindu group Between 457 and 478 people died last year, it said, adding it had attacked women in a pub in the southern Mukesh Singh, who was driving the bus for Chaotic justice system be screened. Some legislators questioned how been able to identify 235-240 as Uighur and 80-86 as Han, China’s state of Karnataka, then-Chief Minister BS much of the time that the 23-year-old woman The attackers beat the victim’s friend and the filmmaker, who is British, had gotten into ethnic majority. The total was more than double that for 2013, when Yeddyurappa said that he wanted to “end the was being attacked, told the documentary took turns raping her. They penetrated her the prison to do the interview. Many, though, it put deaths between 199 and 237, specifying 116-151 as Uighur culture of boys and girls roaming around in film maker that the victim should have with a rod, leaving severe internal injuries were uncomfortable with having India’s prob- and 32-38 as Han. The rising toll highlights the “excessive force” used malls holding hands.” Women leaders are not remained silent and allowed the rape, and that led to her death two weeks later. Four lems aired publicly - particularly by a foreign by China and a “deterioration in the security environment” since Xi immune. When a female journalist was shot that they would have spared her life. The doc- men were convicted of rape and murder in filmmaker. But several lawmakers, many of Jinping became Chinese president two years ago, the report said. dead in 2008 while driving home from work umentary, which includes a 2013 jailhouse an unusually fast trial for India’s chaotic jus- them women, disagreed. “What the man The findings were “alarming in a number of aspects”, said UHRP well past midnight, New Delhi’s top official at interview with Singh, set off government tice system. A fifth man died in prison, and spoke reflects views of many men in India,” director Alim Seytoff. “It tells us that China’s crackdown on Uighurs is the time, Sheila Dixit, make clear she partly alarm bells after transcripts were released this another attacker who was a juvenile at the Anu Aga, a prominent businesswoman and only exacerbating the violence... and killing more Uighurs,” he said. blamed the victim. “All by herself till 3 am at week. On Tuesday, India’s Information and time was sentenced to three years in a deten- legislator said in Parliament. “Every time a rape The document did not include incidents outside Xinjiang, such as a night in a city where people believe...you Broadcasting Ministry ordered television tion center. happens, the victim is blamed to have pro- mass stabbing at a railway station in Kunming last March, when 31 know...you should not be so adventurous,” channels not to air the film. The four adults who went to trial con- voked the men. Let’s be aware of the view and people were killed and four attackers died. —AFP she told reporters. It remains unclear whether the govern- fessed to the attack but later retracted their not pretend all is well,” she said. —AP Japan slams brakes on Uber taxi service

TOKYO: Japan has slammed the brakes on a pilot “We saw this as a unique opportunity to help with the company would give passengers a ride. project by taxi service Uber less than a month find a solution and fulfill an important need in Since its founding in 2009, Uber has grown after it was launched, with a government official Japan’s future,” it said in a statement. “In the month into one of the world’s largest startups, valued at saying yesterday it probably violates transport since its launch, we’ve received high volumes of some $40 billion, with operations in more than laws. The development marked another blow for positive feedback from participating riders and 200 cities in 54 countries around the world. the web-based taxi app, which has incurred the drivers in the program... we will continue our But existing taxi drivers in dozens of cities hostility of traditional taxi companies in many ongoing dialogue with the relevant authorities to have staged protests against Uber, and regula- countries. clearly communicate program details and address tors in many cities have sought to shut it down. “Last Friday, we met with Uber Japan officials any concerns.” Last month the San-Francisco- Hundreds of taxi drivers from Belgium and and told them to stop the pilot project immediately based firm-which lets non-professional drivers France brought central Brussels to a virtual because we suspect it breaches Japanese transport become chauffeurs-for-hire at rates far lower than standstill Tuesday with their vehicles in a protest law,” a transport ministry official told AFP on condi- normal taxi rides-launched its “Everyone’s Uber” against the company. Safety concerns are also tion of anonymity. “There are two major problems service in the western city of Fukuoka. rising. An Indian woman who alleges an Uber with their project. First, it could be considered an Users who needed a ride could pin their loca- driver raped her in New Delhi has sued the unlicenced taxi business if they use regular (non- tion and request a driver through the app down- online taxi service in a US court, accusing it of professional) drivers, and second, there are safety loaded to a smartphone or tablet. Uber is already failing to ensure passenger safety. Authorities in concerns” including a lack of insurance. Responding active as a paid-for taxi service in Tokyo, tying up New Delhi have asked the national government TOKYO: Taxies wait for a green light on the street in Tokyo yesterday. Japan to the move, Uber said it would continue to talk with professional taxi drivers in a service which to block Uber, saying it was operating illegally in has slammed the brakes on taxi service Uber less than a month after it with officials and said the service would be a plus will continue. But during the data-gathering pilot the Indian capital. The company operates in launched a pilot program in the country. —AFP for urban transport in rapidly ageing Japan. project, non-professional drivers who registered about 10 other Indian cities. —AFP