Female Afghan Lawmaker Faces Death Threat

Female Afghan lawmaker, Malalai Joya, shows a Human Rights report during an interview with The Associated Press in Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, May 13, 2006. Malalai Joya, a female Afghan lawmaker who two years ago called powerful armed leaders "criminals" and who last week on parliament floor called some lawmakers warlords now moves houses every night because of an influx of death threats, she said. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) (Rodrigo Abd - AP)

He said that no mujahedeen have ever threatened Joya with death. "We are Muslim. We never want to kill anyone, to have blood on our hands," he said.

Joya said she can't keep track of the number of death threats she's received since her first speech to the constitutional council in 2003, but that several new ones were called in to her office last week.

She normally changes locations once a week or so, but since her latest speech has been changing locations nightly. She travels with three armed bodyguards.

In her speech, Joya distinguished between the "good" mujahedeen, those that helped Afghanistan win its freedom from the Soviet invasion in the 1980s, and the mujahedeen who committed crimes for power and money.

Joya told AP that her father lost his right leg while fighting for the mujahedeen, a fact she says she has never publicized because she does not want people to think that her fight against warlords is to avenge her father's injury.

A diminutive women only about five feet tall, Joya also speaks passionately about women's rights. She says she wonders why no one will talk about the past crimes of warlords or the current crimes committed against women.

She hopes that some of the warlords will one day have to face trial, as a "healing" of the nation's injuries. In the meantime, she said she will keep speaking out.

"They know very well I will never be silent. I will never be afraid," she said. "We will all die someday."