A Documentary the EU Wants to Suppress

The European Union commissioned a documentary about Afghan women who are in prison for being raped. However, after it was finished, the EU decided not to release the film.

The ostensible reason was that it feared for the safety of the imprisoned women, but one can’t help but wonder if there may be other factors involved. Ten years of Afghan “freedom”, and this is the result? Perhaps Brussels wanted to keep this news away from the folks at home.

As the BBC reported a few days ago:

EU Censors Own Film on Afghan Women Prisoners

The European Union has blocked the release of a documentary on Afghan women who are in jail for so-called “moral crimes”.

The EU says it decided to withdraw the film — which it commissioned and paid for — because of “very real concerns for the safety of the women portrayed”.

However, human rights workers say the injustice in the Afghan judicial system should be exposed.

Half of Afghanistan’s women prisoners are inmates for “zina” or moral crimes.

[…]

Some of the women convicted of “zina” are guilty of nothing more than running away from forced marriages or violent husbands…

The video below from Danish TV contains a brief excerpt from the documentary. Many thanks to Hans Erling Jensen for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:


A full transcript is below the jump:

00:00		Nineteen-year-old Gulnaz was raped and got pregnant. This is her daughter.
00:04		But instead of being helped when she went to the police...
00:08		she ended up in jail, accused of “crimes against morality”
00:12		Text: [ I am left here like a dog. No-one is interested in me. They will be, when they seen this film! ]
00:16		It is exactly this film that the EU does not want the world to see,
00:20		the history of women who are imprisoned...
00:24		...because they are raped, running away from home and being threatened with death!
00:28		The Danish TV 2 got this bit of film as evidence...
00:32		...that Gulnaz herself wants this film to be publicised!
00:36		Text:Why not? I have to!
00:40		When people see this they will learn what’s happening in Afghanistan.
00:44		When people see this they will learn what’s happening in Afghanistan.
00:48		TV2 news has a copy of the email that was sent...
00:52		from the EU’s Office in Kabul to the film company Development Pictures.
00:56		Text: the women would be in serious danger wherever this film would be shown!
01:00		And the EU also must consider their agreements with the courts and legal institutions here.
01:04		Even if the film company has been gagged by EU authorities...
01:08		their director still hopes that the film will be coming out…
01:28		Here in the womens prison in Kabul
01:32		160 women are imprisoned. It is in this penitentiary...
01:36		the documentary was made.
01:40		More than half of the Afghan women imprisoned all over Afghanistan were convicted of “Morality crimes.”
01:44		...according to a UN report. But here, ten years after the Taliban were defeated,
01:48		experts says that the Afghan women are left to themselves.
02:08		Gulnaz and her little daughter...
02:12		can now look forward to twelve years behind bars.
02:16		She says that the rapists father paid a bribe to the judge...
02:20		to increase her sentance from two to twelve years.
02:24		Text: I am in prison with my little daughter. Why am I here?
02:28		I will not accept it. They forced me to confess!
02:32		I don’t know why I am in prison — why do I have to be here?
02:36		HE did the crime, but I pay for it!