Afghan parliament suspends outspoken female lawmaker

Herald Tribune reported Afghanistan's lower parliamentary house voted Monday to suspend an outspoken female lawmaker, who has enraged former mujahedeen fighters now in President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed government. The lawmaker, Malalai Joya, 29, said in a recent interview with private Afghan station Tolo TV that the country's parliament was like a "stable or zoo." "This is a word that fits — a cattle house is full of animals, like a cow giving milk, a donkey carrying something, a dog that's loyal," Joya said. The video was shown in the legislature Monday, and angry lawmakers voted to suspend her, said parliamentary spokesman Haseb Noori.

They may still be animals, but animals bite.

... Joya's outspoken ways have earned her many enemies in Afghanistan. In February, during a rally to support a proposed amnesty for Afghans suspected of war crimes, thousands of former fighters shouted "Death to Malalai Joya!"

That really shows they are well suited to be in the legislature.

Last May, Joya called some lawmakers "warlords" in a parliamentary speech, prompting some lawmakers to throw water bottles at her. A minor scuffle broke out between her supporters and detractors, and Joya later said some legislators had threatened to rape her as payback.

Do they do that to male legislators they disagree with as well?

Brynn blogged Although the BBC billed Joya in January of last year as, “one of the most popular MPs in Afghanistan,” she has nonetheless been the target of four assassination attempts and her home has been bombed.

I guess the majority of Afghanistan’s members of parliament, in addition to being sexists chauvinist pigs and (many of them) religious fanatics, also have no grasp of metaphor. Or is that redundant to mention, in light of the former two?.... The full quote from above is, “They will kill me but they will not kill my voice, because it will be the voice of all Afghan women. You can cut the flower, but you cannot stop the coming of spring.”