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Wahdat Afghan / Reuters
An Afghan schoolgirl receives treatment at a hospital after allegedly being poisoned in Takhar province May 23, 2012.
KABUL – Over 100 girls from Afghanistan’s northern Jawzjan province in Afghanistan were hospitalized Monday after allegedly being poisoned. The girls, ages 8 to 22, fell ill while attending class at Meser Abad High School, local officials told NBC News.
More than 300 schoolgirls in the province have allegedly experienced poisoning in the last two weeks.
Local officials blamed the Taliban for the schoolgirls’ poisoning, however, the Taliban have rejected the accusation.
Some speculate that the illnesses could be blamed on mass hysteria linked to fears of a Taliban takeover once the U.S. and international forces withdraw from the country in 2014.
Both the Afghan government and NATO forces have done blood tests on the students after the poisonings, but have found no traces of poison.
Experts have said that the poisoning scare has all the “earmarks” of mass hysteria. Robert Bartholomew, an expert on mass hysteria, told the AFP that the scare is typical of social panic in other war zones like Kosovo in the past.
"The tell-tale signs of psychogenic illness in these Afghan outbreaks include the preponderance of schoolgirls; the conspicuous absence of a toxic agent; transient, benign symptoms; rapid onset and recovery; plausible rumors; the presence of a strange odor; and anxiety generated from a wartime backdrop.”
EPA
School girls receive first aid in Jowzjan on July 2.
NBC spoke with Heather Barr, an Afghanistan Researcher for Human Rights Watch, based in Kabul, about the incidents and why the education of girls is such a potent symbol of change since the fall of the Taliban.
Read a Q & A with Barr below:
Why is girls’ education still the subject of the alleged poisoning attacks?
Schoolgirls, their teachers and their schools are a soft target for insurgent groups seeking to terrorize communities and demonstrate the government's inability to protect communities. The Taliban has issued recent statements talking about their commitment to education, but these statements conspicuously do not mention girls' education – and threats and attacks continue.
Why is poison a main method of disruption?
These [alleged] poisonings are very perplexing, primarily because we have yet to see clear scientific evidence of the presence of poison, in spite of testing by [NATO’s] International Security Assistance Force and international organizations.
Some experts have suggested that these incidents may have a psychological explanation rather than a chemical one. If that is true, it speaks volumes about the trauma and fear school children experience simply going to school every day, due to threats and attacks against schools.
It would also beg many worrying questions about the arrests that have been made in Takhar and the confessions from some of those arrested. [She was referring to the alleged poisoning of students in Afghanistan’s Northeastern Takhar Province]
Whether or not there is poison involved, these incidents are having a devastating effect on girls' education.
Do these attacks against schools have the desired outcome? Does it disrupt education for girls? Are families frightened or defiant?
I'm afraid that the attacks do have the desired outcome. Many schoolgirls and their families are defiant in the face of threats and attacks, but at the same time half of all girls are not in school, and security is unquestionably the cause of some of these girls being denied education.
What is the Afghan government doing about the attacks?
The government should make public, and share with international experts, any scientific evidence they have regarding the use of poison in these cases. By doing so can they lay to rest questions about whether poison is really involved and gain assistance in prevent future incidents.
Is this situation likely to continue?
Tragically the poisoning incidents seem to be rapidly gaining momentum at the moment. It is urgent that the government respond effectively and find a way to prevent these incidents. And the first steps have to be understanding what poisons – if any – are involved.
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Leave a Comment:
If the Afghans don't want the Taliban taking over then they shouldn't have welcomed them back in with open arms after we kicked them OUT ten years ago!
For 11 years the US and NATO forces have been fighting wars from the wrong end! So NATO forces had heavy losses despite huge monies spent.
Now NATO forces are running away just like in Iraq!
Can anyone with a little sense have the biggest ungrateful backstabbers and highly bigoted, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as allies?
The U.S. poisoned them.
Dave, maybe you can take a break from pissing on Pakistan. When the US left negotiations two weeks ago they obviously had a package that merely needed Hillary's verbiage . At this point toothpaste is actually available and there is no exhorbitant, if any, truck fee. The US did kill 24 Pakistanis in Pakistan - let's move along, they're humans and need to make a living too.
worry about the country you came from (suzuki) if you don't like the way the US does, carry your ass- we've sent enough jobs to your country-so maybe you can go and get one
the afgans have lived this way for decades, who are we to think they should be like us.
I think it is heat prostration from wearing heavy robes in the heat of the day.
Must have been in their "Three Cups of Tea". Greg M's fault for sure, even if it sounds like a Taliban idea. Sending females to school to win hearts and minds? We have seen the results.
They've had years to eject the Taliban from their country. What a shame for all females there that it hasn't happened. Dark days ahead, and the only way it can stop is internally. Culture must be changed from within.
It is a hopeless case!
I don't see much hopes on the Afghan and Paki regions.
Before the followers of Islamic cult set their feet on the Afghan and Paki regions, the region was a calm and prosperous one. Since then it has been only downslide!
When most don't care for religion much these days, followers of Islamic cult, especially Sunni Saudi inspired Islamic radicals and militants (al-Qaida, Salaffi, Wahhabi, MB and other label ones), are fast marching backwards to their seventh century desert tribal days of rapings, lootings, killings and genocides of non-Muslims.
Here Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are primarily culprits!
best lesson theses girls can learn is how to carry and use a concealed gun. When the punks come to force their ways on them, smoke em
How long will they keep that tactic up, after just a few smokings?
Give them our 2nd amendments rights as a test to see how good it works
Women have voted for Obama. They now see what kind of treatment the leader of the world's most powerful country will tolerate. Heck, US women should be asking Michelle to castrate the Great Tolerant of Torture and Murder. Women should be sending razor blades to Michelle to perform the operation.
...hate much, hater?
Jamie, exactly what the hell does Obama have to do with this? I agree with um. yeah above--you're so rabid with hate for the man you have to inject calls for violence against him into everything you post. Seriously, pal, you need a life...
Critical times hard to deal with, will be here.
Realy theres no reason to go to school in afganistan theresno commerce there and never will be ,you dont need education to grow and sell drugs and kill one another. Mite be best if they put the girls to work in the fields growing food crops maby the whole world could learn somthing buy the out come.==coyote
Sounds like some female circumcision will fix that right up!
the best way to solve this problem is to spend a few more hundred trillion dollars in no-bid defense contracts for another decade or two in afghanistan. THAT will surely solve the problem. and fund my retirement portfolio of halliburton to boot! tee hee!
To answer the question (headline).
Yes, they were most likely poisoned.
the bible says at the end of time there would be people who would kill you thinking they were doing the will of god,
they will do this till they all die..muslims are trained from childhood to hate
God did not create Man. Man Created a God. And that is the problem we are having today. People are Afraid of something that isn't and Never was. Atheist have it the best. They aren't afraid all the time like religious people. Religious people don't Love their God, they are Afraid of their God. And children here in the U.S. are trained from childhood to believe in something that isn't there. No different than Muslims. I think it's called Brainwashing.
Ahh, wade...they've been doing that literally since the beginning of organized religion, if not earlier, and sorry to bust your bubble, bub, but the Muslims don't exactly have a corner on religious violence. Do yourself a favor and take a trip up to Salem, Mass., to remind yourself of that...
They were definitely poisened!
Dam romney should have been there.
Their ages ranged from 8 to 22? what were 8 year olds doing in high school? If the Afghans expect us to leave our troops there indefinitely to protect them than they are wrong. We have taken enough abuse and lies from them and have lost and endangered too many of our soldiers already.
do you really think they have enough schools to separate them by ages?
Here Pakis have played a major role in the growth of Taliban, al-Qaida and other Islamic serious heroin drug addicts.
Some might have been poisoned and rest hysteria!
In Afghanistan, Pakis have backstabbed the US and NATO forces big time. Half of NATO forces deaths are due to ungrateful and backstabbing Pakis.
When the NATO forces were entering Kandahar in 2001, Pakis airlifted key al-Qaida, Taliban, ISI and others militants by back door from Kandahar.
This includes Mullah Omar, Osama and many including Paki Haqqani militant network leaders.
Hope you remember about Pakis sheltering Osama.
These Paki Islamic religious Nazis don't bother about their people and they are into reckless killing games in the name of jihad.
Drone attacks are not enough and to reduce NATO forces losses, Paki militant areas should be carpet bombed just like 1991 Iraqi war.
Also no Paki liability should be permitted inside any non-Muslim nation, especially the US.
It is time for the Paki Trojan horses in the US, UK and other places to get out at earliest and go to their beloved Pakistan.
The weepies are claiming that it might not be poison. That we might just be making it up because we are the bad guys, not them. That we are at fault in some convoluted way. I call BS. They were poisoned by taliban morons who won't tolerate smart women because it's in their faith that women are chattel and nothing more
Aaaaaaand...you have evidence, perhaps?...
Nobody's saying we're the bad guys. One of the hallmarks mentioned as pertaining to mass hysteria was plausible rumors. In other words, the girls become sick because they believe they've been poisoned, because poisoning IS possible. They're not believing in something that is extremely unlikely to happen. This points to the Taliban as the bad guys, because they've poisoned, or taken responsibility for poisoning, enough girls to lend credence to the rumors.
>>Aaaaaaand...you have evidence, perhaps?...<<
Without trying to be smarmy or a smart-ass in my answer, I give you the answer I know. The Koran, hadiths and sura's are the source of information I have! Read them sometime and you will see what I (and many others) have. And yes I have read them, (originally out of curiosity in 1986) which put a start on my islamophobia.
Read about what their vaunted leader mohammad did with Aisha from the time she was six thru when she was nine. And she (yes, she dictated some of their holy books) talks about her having to clean up from it, what she did during his "thighing" her, ect. Nothing is hidden!! I kid you not. Also, it shows how mohammed directs his men to keep the women in "respectful slavery" and how to avoid damaging them too much when you beat them.
Nothing is said about burkas, those are just some women abusers interpretation on how the "chattel" should dress.
They take misogyny and institutionalize it. Similar to their obvious anti-semitism, even though their base is Semite. They make no sense as a group, except as an organization to avoid. . .
While I agree with you regarding Islam's treatment of women, that is still not evidence that these particular girls were poisoned.
Well, I know it's not PC to say this, but if that many girls were poisoned in one girls school (which it were know as factual that similar was done in the past, with acid, poison, fire, ect by islamists and taliban), the accusation with the occurrence is quite enough for me to make a start. I honestly believe it was islamists, even without proof (we will have that down the road unless I miss my guess). I know it's seen as prejudice but in point of fact, it's "post-judice".
If a known mobster with murders in his background, and the freedom and pre-disposition and motivation to commit similar crimes is in the area of another murder against someone he is known to dislike, well. . . he probably did it. I do say probably, say a 99% chance he's the scum who did the dirty deed.
You see where I'm coming from? The evidence is forthcoming. . . If it turns out the 1% is true and they didn't do it, I'd be honestly surprised.
These people have a heavily engrained culture that is not easy, possibly even impossible to change. There needs to be a genuine interest from the side of the Afghan govt. to want to change.
All signs, however, point to the fact that the Afghani govt. couldnt care less for the quality of life of it's citizens, the people that allegedly put them in the position of power, through democratic elections.
If and when ISAF leaves, there will be a recokning within the country, just like threre was when the Afghan king was deposed. There will once again be factions, with widely different agendas, and terror will make a severe comeback into Afhanistan.
MSNBC, you disgust me. You support the Taliban in their war of aggression against the moderate, democratic nation of Afghanistan. Even if the illnesses of the school girls was due to mass hysteria, it's because young girls are being frequently attacked and terrorized by Islamic extremists. The Taliban and other Islamic extremists are dead set against women getting an education. Why don't you list the symptoms these girls are suffering from and let the public decide rather than just dismissing them? MSNBC, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Msnbc is only reporting what they have learned, from sources. They as a News organization cannot and should not take sides. It is not in their perview to have an opinion. You might not like it, you might rather see a news agecy that deals in hyperbolic or vitriololic terminologies. I would say that you'd have to look elsewhere for that, because that is not news.
I am of course talking about this particular article, I am not referring to any american news about the Republican party or American politics. Most know, even abroad, that American News agencies take side in internal politics.
You must have missed the press release, MSNBC is not longer a "news" organisation. They freely admit that they are little more than a propaganda platform of progressive opinion.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/inside-cable-news-chronicles-msnbcs-shift-from-news-to-progressive-opinion-programming/
"MSNBC’s Journey From ‘News Network’ To Opinion Network"
we need to fill space has anyone got an idea? how about a poison article! it can be long and drawn out. test taken and no sign of poison end of story, but we need to fill space!
True or not that the Taliban poisened these girls, it still wouldn't surprise me if they did. If they start killing all the women in Afghanistan there are going to be a lot of GAY Men in that country. Of course that will mean in time no more Taliban in that country.
What do you expect in one of the most ignorant, racist, and worthless people in the world (next to Pakistanis).
What can you do with a supremely religious, superstitous, uneducated people, ruled by fools who don't look like they can even dress themselves, much less partake in the running of a country.
The only export is herion; the only sport is terrorism; the only good Afghans are the ones who got out of the country and joined the real world.
After a couple trillion dollars, the only richness to that country is shown in the Swiss accounts of their 'leaders' and 'businessmen'.
John said it all, this is a hopeless pit of ignorance. Only fools rush in to places like this!
With all respect to the victims and their families has anyone looked for the presence of a water soluble pesticide in the collective drinking water or perhaps sprayed in the rooms recently to control insects? Pesticides and other agents that release oxalic acid upon their metabolism (diethylene glycol, ethylene glycol) have been reported in the literature as causing skin rash and itching much like that visible in some of the videos available on line of the victims in hospital. The poisoning maybe rather sublte and require some hair sampling and forensics in a qualified laboratory. If the Taliban was involved then they may have used such agents in the drinking water or perhaps with a known solvent (DMSO) to hurt these poor kids. Truly dreadful, let's hope someone looks at it closely.