08 November 2007

Malalai Joya

The former Afghan parliamentarian and women's rights advocate Malalai Joya is doing a cross-Canada tour at the moment, and she's speaking at my university tonight. I suspect there will be a very big turnout, given the high profile of Afghanistan these days. I actually helped organize the event, so I'm really sorry to be missing her talk. But with my trip tomorrow I was just too busy getting ready to attend.

Instead, I went to the press conference she gave on campus this afternoon, so I got to hear her speak for a short time, at least. She's an incredibly interesting and brave woman. I first found out about her a few months ago, when a documentary film about her (called A Woman Among Warlords) was shown on PBS.

No comments: