My favourite Afghan politician

Afghanistan held Parliamentary elections last weekend, but I ignored them in the struggle to cover our own ones. Then, when I was reading New Statesman yesterday, I came across an article on one of the candidates: Malalai Joya. She's a women's rights activist from Farah province, working on literacy, health, and violence against women. But she's most famous for a speech during the 2003 Loya Jirga, in which she condemned the presence of the warlords and Mujahadeen commanders who had brutalised the country with civil war, and called for them to be prosecuted by an international court for their crimes. This didn't make her any friends amongst the warlords - she's since survived four assassination attempts, and has to travel with armed guards - but it earned her a lasting constituency among their victims. And now, she's running for Parliament. Here's hoping she gets elected.