a very good tribute

to a very good woman who was also a very brave woman indeed. she had the strength and courage of many.

Sitara Achakzai, Martyr for Muslim Women

By Kamran Pasha

Hollywood filmmaker, author of “Mother of the Believers”

This weekend, the Taliban murdered Sitara Achakzai, Afghanistan’s leading activist for women’s rights. She was gunned down in broad daylight by assassins in front of her house. Ms. Achakzai was an instrumental figure in promoting women’s rights in the war torn country that has become the symbol of everything that is wrong with the Muslim world today. Earlier this year, she led a nationwide sit-in of 11,000 Afghan women in seven provinces who gathered to pray for peace on International Women’s Day.

As a Muslim man, as a believer and as a voice in Hollywood and the media, I am here to say to her killers: you are evil, twisted men, and you will not escape the consequences of your crime against our Muslim sister, who stood for peace and justice. Even if you flee into the protective arms of your Taliban sponsors, Allah is the Lord of justice, and you will never escape Him, in this world or the next.

And you will not succeed in destroying Ms. Achakzai’s legacy. In fact, you have only given it greater power. For you have made Sitara Achakzai a martyr. She died for the same reason as the first martyr of Islam, a woman named Sumayya bint Khayyat, who was killed for speaking truth to power................