AFGHANISTAN: MP thrown out over cow and donkey comments

Her brand is to state what is the common opinion about among a lot of Afghan people

Malalai Joya, one of Afghanistan's most outspoken members of parliament, was voted out of the lower house this week by her fellow MPs. Her crime? Saying in a television interview that her the other MPs were "worse than cows and donkeys" because at least they could provide milk and carry hay.

Malalai Joya, in a press conference in Kabul on May 21, 2007 vows to continue her fight against warlords. (AP photo)

Presenter/Interviewer: Bill Bainbridge
Speakers: Filmaker Eva Mulvad; Soraya Paikan, former deputy minister of higher education

BAINBRIDGE: Pashsto singer Ustad Gul Zaman sings in celebration of Malalai Joya, the 29 year old Afghan political firebrand. Joya burst on the scene in December 2003.

SFX speech and chaos

BAINBRIDGE: She was elected to the Loya Jirga, the meeting called to draft the nation's new constitution, where she rose to her feet and called its members "criminals" and the "most anti-women people in the society ...who should be "taken to national and international court".

It made her instantly loved and hated throughout the country and lead her to win a seat in the Parliament in 2005, there she continued her verbal attacks on the mujahideen and those parliamentarians she accuses of being criminals and drug smugglers.

That's made her a host of powerful enemies. Joya travels with twelve bodyguards and changes houses every few days to avoid being assassinated.

It also made her internationally famous, with a documentary about her life, The Enemies of Happiness, recently winning the World Cinema Jury Prize at the Sundance film festival.

The film's director Eva Mulvad says she's not surprised that Malalai Joya lost her place in parliament.

MULVAD: Yeah, I think they want to get rid of her voice. She's really disturbing to a lot of people. And I must say, she is also very, very radical, taken the situation in Afghanistan and the way that women used to be talking in public. So I mean she's also really challenging a lot of the rules and traditions.

BAINBRIDGE: Soraya Paikan, was until recently Deputy Minister of Higher Education, she knows from bitter experience how difficult it is to be a powerful woman in Afghanistan. Paikan was fired from her position three weeks ago, she says unjustly. She says that Malalai Joya oversteps the boundaries of what is acceptable to say in Afghanistan BUT she also says if she were a man it would be a non issue.

PAIKIN: She used some words. It is not in our culture, in Afghanistan culture.

BAINBRIDGE: Do you think if a man had said the same thing that he would also have been expelled from the Parliament?

PAIKIN: No, even the man if they're very crafty and they are killing and they are doing very they are using very bad, bad words. Why are you using these kind of words for the woman? Because we are woman, woman don't have any respect in this country.

BAINBRIDGE: After it viewed the controversial television clip three times, the lower house of parliament voted by a large majority to suspend her until the end of its term in 2010. Calling her "a staunch defender of human rights and a powerful voice for Afghan women" Human Rights Watch has called for her to be reinstated immediately and urged the parliament to revise procedures which it said restricted freedom of speech.

But Eva Mulvad says whether she's reinstated or not Joya will continue to be outspoken.

MULVAD: Her brand is to state what is the common opinion about among a lot of Afghan people, so I think she will not change the way she speaks. That has been her political brand for a long time and that is what she believes in. It's not something like a spin doctor found out for her.