The Most Important Protest That Happened on April 15th

While American news channels were preoccupied following conservatives who threw Fox News sponsored Tea Parties across the U.S. yesterday to vehemently protest . . . something . . . (The shoddily regulated corporate bailouts initiated by President Bush that most progressives also do not like? President Obama's proposed return to Clinton-era tax rates for Americans with incomes in the top two percent? Conservatives losing political power by will of the majority in a peaceful, legal, democratic election?) you may have missed the news about a much more important protest that took place on April 15th:

About 300 Afghan women gathered in Kabul and braved an angry mob of anti-feminist religious fundamentalists to march in protest against a recently passed law that women's rights and human rights groups worldwide have warned will legalize marital rape, promote child marriage and seriously curtail women's rights.

The law in question, the Shia Family Law, applies to members of the Shia sect of Islam, a minority in Afghanistan. The law makes it illegal for a Shia woman to refuse her husbands' request for sex unless she is physically ill. The law also allows child marriage among Shia Muslims, grants Shia fathers ultimate custody rights over their children, and requires that a Shia woman obtain her husband's permission before leaving the house.

On Wednesday, April 15th, the Afghan women protesters made their way through a crowd of angry men, who threw stones at the marching women and screamed "Whores!" as they attempted to surround and stop the protest. With the aid of Afghan police, the women walked two miles, through threats, insults, and hails of gravel, from a conservative madrasa run by one of the drafters of the law to the steps of the Afghan Parliament.

On Thursday, April 16th, Afghan President Hamid Karzai told CNN's Fareed Zakaria that he will attempt to revise the Shia Family Law before its implementation. Karzai now claims he did not understand the scope of the law when he signed it because he had not read the entire piece of legislation, which was part of a larger bill aimed at promoting the preservation of Afghanistan's minority Shia culture.

The progressive group Credo Action has created an online petition asking U.S. President Barack Obama to put diplomatic pressure on President Karzai to abolish the law.