Dr.

Aafia Siddiqui

Foreword by Dr. Tarek Mehanna

Compiled by The Peace Thru Justice Foundation and Families United for Justice in America

 Copyright 1433 AH / 2012 AC 2012All Rights Reserved for all original material contained in this publication. Contact Information: The Peace Thru Justice Foundation 11006 Veirs Mill Road STE L-15, PMB 298 Silver Spring, MD. 20902 Tel: (301) 220-0133 or (202) 246-9608 E-mail: peacethrujustice@aol.com website: www.peacethrujustice.org Official Website: www.FreeAafia.org

D e D i c at i o n

For the Oppressed

BEFORE

AFTER

table of conte nts

Introduction .................................................................................7 Foreword: The Aafia Siddiqui I Saw Family & Friends
- Who was Dr. Aafia Siddiqui? An Eyewitness Account by Andy Purcell .........................................................................26 - My Memories of Aafia in Boston by Bashir Hanif .........................................................................32 - Aafia Siddiqui Memories of MIT to Carswell Prison by Hena Zuberi .........................................................................36 - A Tale of Two Prisoners by Dr. Fowzia Siddiqui..............................................................42 by Dr. Tarek Mehanna ...................................................................17

Other Voices
- The Sentencing of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui by Mauri Saalakhan .................................................................48 - WikiLeaks Renews Dr. Afia Siddiqui Mystery by John Floyd and Billy Sinclair ..............................................60 - The WikiLeaks on Aafia Siddiqui by Mauri Saalakhan .................................................................65 - The Aafia Siddiqui Case: A New Turn as Lawyers Release Explosive, Secretly Recorded Tape by Victoria Brittain....................................................................68

- Injustice in the Age of Obama by Cindy Sheehan......................................................................85 - A Tale of Three Accused Women: And Justice American Style by Mauri Saalakhan .................................................................90

The Challenges Ahead

- Condemned by Their Silence by Yvonne Ridley .......................................................................96 - Why Have Muslims Who Knew Aafia Been So Silent? .........101 - A Message of Gratitude from the Family of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui ....................................................................106 Epilogue: An Open Letter to the U.S. Government ....................108

I ntroductIon

introDuction
n December 31, 2011, a sizeable group of concerned citizens of varying faiths and ideological persuasions assembled on a busy thoroughfare in the little town of Westworth, Texas, to demonstrate their concern for a female prisoner being held on the Carswell Airbase. The activists were told the town of Westworth (part of greater Fort Worth) has the closest entry point into the part of the base where the penal hospital known as FMC Carswell is located. This was the second demonstration held at this location for a female prisoner known as Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. A demonstration was held on April 9th at the same location, with the only difference being that the December 31st mobilization included a march as well as a protest rally. Who is this woman that total strangers would take time out of a beautiful New Years Eve afternoon to demonstrate for, in of all places, deep in the heart of Texas? A synopsis of her story Aafia Siddiqui was born in Pakistan in 1972. She spent her early years in Zambia (Africa), where her mother worked with a non-profit womens organization as a social worker and her late father was a practicing physician. She came to the United States from Pakistan at 18, and lived with her older brother (Muhammad) and his family while attending the University of Houston her freshman year. After an impressive academic start in Texas, Aafia matriculated to Bostons MIT on a full scholarship and earned a bachelors degree in biology; she would later earn her doctorate in cognitive neuroscience from Brandeis University.

O ther V Oices

At Brandeis, Aafias doctoral thesis was on Learning through Imitation. Her research was centered on how to improve learning techniques for children (especially those with learning disabilities). She later married a Pakistani physician by the name of Mohammad Amjad Khan, the couple had three children together (two sons and a daughter) before separating under acrimonious circumstances. Shortly after moving the family to Pakistan in 2002, Khan divorced Aafia while she was pregnant with the couples third child. He remarried within weeks of the divorce, and in March 2003, Aafia and her three young children (two of whom are American-born citizens) were kidnapped from the streets of Pakistan and disappeared without a trace. Dr. Aafia Siddiqui a citizen of Pakistan and devoted mother of three children - is now 39 years old, a political prisoner (and prisoner of war), being held under unconstitutional conditions in the United States of America. Circumstances surrounding the case It is our belief that a series of innocent occurrences in the lives of Amjad Khan and Aafia Siddiqui (while they were living in Boston, post 9/11) brought the couple to the attention of U.S. authorities. We believe that Aafias academic prowess, her charitable work, and her well known commitment to Islam heightened the suspicion around her at a time when active Muslims throughout the country were coming under suspicion - simply for being active and committed Muslims. In March 2003, a recently divorced Dr. Aafia Siddiqui and her three young children - Ahmad (boy), six years old and an American citizen; Maryam (girl), four years old and also an American citizen; and Suleman (boy), a six month old Pakistani citizen - were kidnapped by unknown authorities in Karachi, Pakistan, when the

I ntroductIon

taxi they were traveling in was stopped and all four passengers were forcibly removed. On March 31, 2003 it was reported by the Pakistani media that Aafia had been arrested and turned over to representatives of the United States. In early April, this was confirmed by NBC Nightly News (in addition to other media outlets). Around the same time the mother of Aafia received a message from purported agencies which essentially stated that if the family ever wanted to see Aafia and her children alive again, they should be quiet about their disappearance. By 2008, many believed that Aafia and her three children were most likely dead; and then in July of 2008 (the same month that Aafia Siddiqui mysteriously reappeared on the streets of Ghazni, Afghanistan, in a weakened and disheveled state, in the company of a young boy) two events occurred: 1. British human-rights journalist Yvonne Ridley, and former Bagram detainee and British citizen Moazem Begg, publicly spoke out about a woman who was being held at the Bagram detention center in Afghanistan, a woman who the male prisoners would often hear screaming. They dubbed this woman the Grey Lady of Bagram. 2. A petition for habeas corpus was filed with the Pakistan High Court in Islamabad, requesting that the court order the Pakistani government to free Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, or to even admit that they (or others) were detaining her. The competing accounts of July 2008 The official account is that Aafia and her son were taken into Afghan custody in July 2008, and while in custody awaiting re-interroga-

10

O ther V Oices

tion, she is accused of charging forth from behind a curtain like a female Rambo, picking up a M-4 rifle off the floor, taking the safety off and firing it while screaming anti-American expletives at her intended targets. Miraculously she missed everyone in the room, and she was shot in retaliation. Thats the official story. Aafias version is far more plausible. Aafia testified during the trial (in violation of the court order that banned any exploration of those missing five years!) that upon hearing the voices of Americans enter the room, she began to feel panic, and her mind fixated on one thing she did not want to be sent back to the secret prison. As the Afghans and Americans argued over who would retain custody of the prisoners, Aafia said she peered through the curtain looking for an escape route, and a soldier who was sitting directly across the small room saw her and panicked. He jumped up and shouted, The prisoners free! (or something to that effect), then pulled out his sidearm and fired, striking Aafia two or three times in the stomach area. Aafia was transported for emergency treatment to a field hospital, and, after being stabilized, brought back to the United States (in violation of international law) where she has been ever since. Aafia was the only person shot on that fateful day. The only shell casings found on the floor during the investigation that ensued were the shell casings from the automatic weapon that was used to shoot her. Aafia would miraculously survive the deadly confrontation and deny the charges leveled against her; a denial that would receive support from an unlikely source. The Afghan commander of the police compound would later state, The prisoner (referring to Aafia Siddiqui) never fired a weapon. Despite the earlier allegations against Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, and the way that her capture and subsequent trial played out in the media, NO TERRORISM CHARGES were leveled against her in the fed-

I ntroductIon

11

eral indictment. Not one! Mere facts, however, were not allowed to get in the way of a vigorous and bigoted prosecution. Among other things, there were constant innuendos of terrorism by the prosecution throughout the trial, despite the fact that Aafia was not even charged with material support for terrorism. The prosecution of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was littered with many troubling inconsistencies and defects. Pre-trial rulings, and rulings throughout the trial by the judge in the case (Richard Berman) strongly favored the prosecution and prejudiced the case against the defense. This ranged from allowing hearsay evidence into the proceedings, to giving the jury instructions that favored the prosecution. The most damning of Bermans rulings, however, was the order that banned any examination of the missing five years (2003-2008) during the trial! It should also be noted that Aafia was not represented by lawyers of her own choosing; and further, the high-priced team of lawyers that she had, while experienced and capable, put on a very, very disappointing and passionless defense! One could argue that Aafia received nothing more than an adequate defensewhich at the end of the day ended up being woefully inadequate! The convergence of Judge Richard Bermans prejudiced framing of the case, the terrorism innuendo that came from the prosecutors, the unrelentingly biased media coverage that was a daily occurrence, the lackluster performance of Aafias lawyers, and the jurys shameful embrace of an official narrative that defied logic resulted in Dr Aafia Siddiqui being convicted on all counts in the indictment. On September 23, 2010, Aafia was sentenced to 86 years in prison by a federal judge who overruled the jurys determination that there was no premeditation. Judge Berman also added judicial enhancements that made no legal sense!

12

O ther V Oices

What the Family and Supporters of Aafia believe We believe Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is an innocent person who was abducted for money, or based on false allegations (or false assumptions) derived from one or more unknown sources; and that all of the evidence required for establishing the fact that she and her children were the targets of a rendition operation i.e., kidnapped and then secretly and illegally imprisoned overseas - would require the full cooperation of the U.S. and Pakistani governments, or certain intelligence agenciesa cooperation that seems virtually impossible. We believe that any government-held documents of an incriminating nature against Aafia are either false documents, or documents produced under torture and/or the threat of harm to Aafias children. Further, that on the day of her re-arrest in Ghazni, the Afghan police were looking for Aafia and her oldest son (Ahmad, who had just been briefly reunited with his mother) based on a description given by an anonymous tipster shortly after her suspicious release from Bagram. We believe that Aafia, who spoke no local language in Ghazni, was dressed conspicuously so that she (and her son) could be easily identified and shot on sight as falsely accused, or suspected, suicide bombers. We believe that had Aafia and Ahmad been shot on sight, on the suspicion of being suicide bombers, this would have led to a convenient closure of the case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, at a time when a petition for habeas corpus was pending in the High Court of Pakistan in Islamabad. This court had been asked to order then-President Pervez Musharraf and the Pakistani government (which would include anyone working with them) to release her or to reveal her whereabouts.

I ntroductIon

13

We believe that the forensic and scientific evidence presented during the trial in New York proved that Aafia Siddiqui could not have committed the crimes for which she was charged (attempting to murder U.S. personnel in Afghanistan in July 2008); and that the jury disregarded the material evidence and the perjured testimony of the governments star witnesses - and chose to agree with the prosecutions narrative, due to the governments successful (media-assisted) manipulation of fear and prejudice. What the detractors of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui want us to believe Aafias detractors want us to believe that this respectable Pakistani woman is a female terrorist mastermind that was voluntarily hiding undercover (with three young children) and acting as a field operative for al-Qaeda, while leaving her distressed family to believe for five years that she and her three children were dead. We are asked to believe that Aafia took on this persona right after her father died - and following the disintegration of her marriage - and that she callously decided to leave her newly widowed mother alone in Pakistan while she sallied about for a jihadist adventure. While an establishment journalist by the name of Deborah Scroggins has just published a book, which, according to early reviews, appears to echo this very unfortunate narrative, those who know Aafia Siddiqui are absolutely convinced that this scenario is not plausible at all! And as the French philosopher Voltaire reportedly said: Those who can make us believe absurdities can also cause us to commit atrocities. Aafias Children Aafias oldest son, Ahmed, who is a U.S. citizen by birth, was found in Ghazni, Afghanistan after think-

14

O ther V Oices

ing he was an orphan, and in late 2008 was reunited with Aafias family (mother and sister) in Karachi, Pakistan. Aafias daughter, Maryum, also a US citizen by birth, was mysteriously dropped off in April 2010 (with identification around her neck) near her aunts house in Karachi after being missing for seven years. She was traumatized and spoke only American accented English. Aafias youngest child, Suleman, a boy who would now be almost nine years old, remains missing; and is feared dead.

What Aafias Family and Supporters Want? Her Freedom and repatriation back to her home in Pakistan. An open and independent investigation into what happened to Aafia and her children; and accountability for all of the other disappeared persons from the so-called war on terrorism. That important lessons be learned from this tragic case, so that such heartbreaking atrocities can come to an end.

We ask people to look into this case for themselves, and to do so with an open mind. There is a lot of information out there on Dr. Aafia Siddiqui in the public square. Some of the stories demonize Aafia, while others raise her to sainthood. Aafia is neither demon nor saint; she is simply an ordinary mother, daughter, sister, and committed Muslimah, trapped in an extraordinary man-made nightmare. Make dua (say a prayer) for her, and do what you can to aid this humble effort to end Aafias nightmare.

I ntroductIon

15

This little book, comprised of many voices, should provide you with some valuable ammunition toward that end, inshaAllah (God willing). Now the rest is up to you . . . let your conscience be your guide. Salaams (Peace), El-Hajj Mauri Saalakhan Director of Operations The Peace Thru Justice Foundation

BEFORE

AFTER

F oreword

17

f oreWorD The Aafia Siddiqui I Saw

By Dr. Tarek Mehanna uring the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him), those who entered Islam were of two types: those who remained in their lands with the general populace practicing the basic tenets of the religion, and those who took it upon themselves to migrate and join the Prophet in his expeditions. There are ahadith that show that the Prophet treated these two groups differently from each other due to their difference in status. For example, Muslim and at-Tirmidhi report that when appointing a leader to a battalion, he would instruct him on how to deal with those of the enemy who became Muslims, saying: invite them to migrate from their lands to the land of the Muhajirin, and inform them that if they do so, they will have all the privileges and obligations of the Muhajirin. If they refuse to migrate, tell them that they will have the status of the Bedouins, and will be subjected to the commands of Allah like the rest of the believers This distinction was simply of one group deciding to take upon its shoulders certain responsibilities in contrast to the other whose inactivity limited them to a very individualistic, localized, benign practice of Islam. One can in essence say that the Prophet divided the practice of the Muslims at the time into two types: the religion of the Migrants (Din al-Muhajirin, whose adherents took upon their shoulders the responsibilities of aiding and giving victory to Islam), and the religion of the Bedouins (Din al-Arab, whose adherents did not go beyond the basics). Although the depiction is of a situation that existed over a thousand years ago, it is an eternal pattern that Muslims will be distrib-

18

O ther V Oices

uted amongst these levels in every era and in every place. So, one can notice this distinction even amongst the practicing Muslims of the East and West. The Din al-Arab of the past can be compared to the Islam that is limited to the five pillars, eating zabihah, and keeping the local mosque clean. Considering how difficult it is in the West to come across even these Muslims, imagine what joy comes to the eye and heart to see those who go a step further and reach the level of adhering to Din al-Muhajirin those whose concern spans the entire Ummah, driving them to get up and become active workers for Islam, to dedicate their every minute to the service of Allah however they can, no matter what other responsibilities clutter their busy lives; to have their hearts beat with the rest of the Muslims all this with their heads raised high and paying no regard to those around them who eat and live like cattle, as it was said: Such are the free in a world of the enslaved Recently, the entire world has been speaking about one such person a short, thin college student, wife, and mother of three small children. Her name is Aafia Siddiqui. I want you to be drawn to the story of this woman and also understand why I was drawn to it. I want you to come to know of the concern and dedication that this woman had for Islam as described by those who knew her a dedication that was manifested by way of actions that were very simple and easy, yet seldom carried out by those who are able. Those who knew Aafia recall that she was a very small, quiet, polite, and shy woman who was barely noticeable in a gathering. However, they add that when necessary, she would say what needed to be said. She was once giving a speech at a fundraiser for Bosnian orphans at a local mosque in which she began lambasting the men

F oreword

19

in the audience for not stepping up to do what she was doing. She would plead: Where are the men? Why do I have to be the one standing up here and doing this work? And she was right, as she was a mother, a wife, and a student in a community full of brothers with nothing to show when it came to Islamic work. When she was a student at MIT, she began organizing drives to deliver copies of the Quran and other Islamic literature to the Muslims in the local prisons. She would have them delivered in boxes to a local mosque, and she would then show up at the mosque and carry the heavy boxes by herself all the way down the three flights of very steep stairs. Subhan Allah, look at the Qadar of Allah: this woman who would spend so much time and effort to help Muslim prisoners is now herself a prisoner (I ask Allah to free her)! Her dedication to Islam was also very evident on campus. A 2004 article from Boston Magazine mentions that she wrote three guides for members who wanted to teach others about Islam. On the groups website, Siddiqui explained how to run a dawah table, and informational booth used at schools events to educate people about, and persuade them to convert, to Islam. The article continues to mention that in the guides she wrote: Imagine our humble but sincere dawah effort turning into a major dawah movement in this country! Just imagine it! And us, reaping the reward of everyone who accepts Islam through this movement, through years to come. Think and plan big. May ALLAH give strength and sincerity to us so that our humble effort continue, and expands until America becomes a Muslim land. Allahu Akbarlook at this himmah (concern)look at these lofty aspirations and goals! As men, we should be ashamed to have to learn such lessons from a sister.

20

O ther V Oices

She would drive out of her way every week to teach the local Muslim children on Sundays. I was told by a sister that she would also drive out of her way every week to visit a small group of reverts to teach them the basics of Islam. One of the sisters who attended her circles described Aafia as not going out of her way to be noticed by anybody, or to be anyones friend. She just came out here to teach us about Allah, and English wasnt even her first language! Another sister who would attend her circles describes: She shared with us that we should never make excuses for who we are. She said: Americans have no respect for people who are weak. Americans will respect us if we stand up and we are strong. Allahu AkbarO Allah, free this woman! But Aafias biggest passion was helping the oppressed Muslims around the globe. When war in Bosnia broke out, she did not sit back and watch with one knee over the other. Rather, she immediately sought out whatever means were within her grasp to make a difference. She didnt sit in a dreamy bubble thinking all day about how she wished that she could go over to Bosnia and help with relief efforts. She got up and did what she could: she would speak to people to raise awareness, she would ask for donations, she would send emails, she would give slideshow presentations the point Im trying to make here is that Aafia showed that there is always something we can do to help our brothers and sisters, the least of which is a spoken word to raise awareness to those who are unaware. Sitting back and doing nothing is never an option. She once gave a speech at a local mosque to raise funds for Bosnian orphans, and when the audience was just sitting there watching her, she asked: How many people in this room own more than one pair of boots? When half the room raised their hands, she said: So, donate them to these Bosnians who are about to face a brutal winter! She was so effective in her plea that even the imam took off his boots and donated them!

F oreword

21

There is much more to say about how passionate this sister was for Islam. However, the above gives you an idea of what she was like, and should hopefully serve as an inspiration for brothers before sisters to become active in serving Islam through whatever means are available. Remember that she was doing all of this while being a mother and a PhD student, and most of us do much less despite having much more free time. So, having this image of Aafia in my mind, I was taken aback at what I saw when she was brought into court for what should have been her bail hearing. The door on the front left side of the courtroom was slowly opened to reveal a frail, limp, exhausted woman who could barely hold her own head up straight in a pale blue wheelchair. She was dressed in a Guantanamo-style orange prison uniform, and her frail head was wrapped in a white hijab that was pulled down to cover her bone-thin arms (the prison uniform is shortsleeved). Her lawyers quickly sat around her, and the hearing began. The head prosecutor, assistant US attorney Christopher LaVigne, walked in with a group of three or four FBI agents, one of whom was a female who looked Pakistani. The defense began by announcing that the bail hearing was to be postponed because of Aafias medical condition. Essentially, Aafias lawyers reasoned that there was no point of her being out on bail if she was near death. So, they demanded that she be allowed a doctors visit before anything else. LaVigne got up and objected, saying that Aafia was a risk to the security of the United States. The judge didnt seem to buy that, and the prosecutor continued arguing that this is a woman who attempted to blast her way out of captivity. As soon as this was said, I looked over and noticed Aafia shaking her head in desperation and sadness, as if she felt that the whole world was against her. By the way, Aafia was so small and weak that I could barely see her from behind the wheelchair. All I could see was her head slumped over to the left and wrapped in the hijab, and her right arm sticking out.

22

O ther V Oices

I got a better understanding of why she was so sad and desperate when her lawyer began listing details of her condition: * * * * * She now has brain damage from her time in US custody One of her kidneys was removed while in US custody She is unable to digest her food since part of her intestines was removed during surgery while in US custody She has layers and layers of sewed up skin from the surgery for the gunshot wound She has a large surgical scar from her chest area all the way down to her torso

With all of this, she had not been visited by a single doctor the entire time of her incarceration in the US despite being in constant incredible abdominal pain following her sloppy surgery in Afghanistan pain for which she was being given nothing more than Ibuprofen! Ibuprofen is purchased over the counter to treat headaches! With all of this, the prosecutor had the audacity and shamelessness to try to prevent her from being seen by a doctor due to her being a security risk. When he was pressed by the judge as to why Aafia was sitting all this time in a NYC prison without basic medical care, the government attorney stuttered, said that it was a complicated situation, and capped it with the expected cheap shot that it was her decision as she refused to by seen by a male doctor. As soon as the prosecutor said that last bit, I saw Aafias thin arm shoot up and shake back and forth to the judge (as if to say No! Hes lying!). I felt so sorry for her, as she was obviously quite frustrated at the lies being spilled out before her very eyes. Her lawyer then put her hand on her arm and began stroking it to comfort her and calm her down.

F oreword

23

When the hearing was over, one scholarly statement stuck in my mind, and it is where Ibn al-Qayyim said that a person rises in his closeness to Allah until: there remains only one obstacle to which the enemy calls him, and this is an obstacle that he must face. If anyone were to be saved from this obstacle, it would have been the Messengers and Prophets of Allah, and the noblest of His Creation. This is the obstacle of Satan unleashing his troops upon the believer with various types of harm: by way of the hand, the tongue, and the heart. This occurs in accordance with the degree of goodness that exists within the believer. So, the higher he is in degree, the more the enemy unleashes his troops and helps them against him, and overwhelms him with his followers and allies in various ways. There is no way around this obstacle, because the firmer he is in calling to Allah and fulfilling His commands, the more the enemy becomes intent upon deceiving him with foolish people. So, he has essentially put on his body armor to confront this obstacle, and has taken it upon himself to confront the enemy for Allahs Sake and in His Name, and his worship in so doing is the worship of the best of worshippers. And this was absolutely clear that day when looking at the scene in the court. Despite Aafias apparent physical weakness and frailty, there was a certain izzah (honor) and strength that I felt emanating from her the entire time. Everything from the way she forcefully shook her hand at the judge when the prosecutor would lie, to how she was keen to wear her hijab on top of her prison garments despite horrible circumstances that would make hijab the last thing on most peoples minds, to the number of FBI agents, US Marshals, reporters, officials, etc. who were all stuffed in this small room to observe this frail, weak, short, quiet, female security risk everything pointed to the conclusion that the only thing all of these people were afraid of was the strength of this sisters iman.

24

O ther V Oices

This is the situation of our dear sister, a Muslim woman in captivity What can I say? I will not close by mentioning the obligation of helping to free Muslim prisoners. I will not mention how al-Mutasim razed an entire city to the ground to rescue a single Muslim woman. I will not go back to the days of Salah ad-Din or Umar bin Abd al-Aziz, who rescued Muslim prisoners in the tens of thousands. I cannot be greedy enough to mention these things at this point because what is even sadder than what is happening to Aafia Siddiqui is how few the Muslims were who even bothered to show up to her hearing in a city of around half a million Muslims (not counting the surrounding areas), and that not a single Muslim organization in the United States has taken up the sisters cause or even spoken a word in her defense, and as Ibn al-Qayyim said: If ghayrah (protective jealousy) leaves a persons heart, his faith will follow it. Unfortunately, in a time where most of us are following Din alArab, it seems that the best person to teach us a lesson in how to help Aafia Siddiqui would have been Aafia herself. ---------------------This commentary was written by Dr. Tarek Mehanna in 2008, shortly after Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was brought (barely alive) to the United States from Afghanistan, where she was secretly held as a prisoner of war. Dr. Mehanna is now a political prisoner (and prisoner of war) himself, following a failed attempt by the FBI to recruit him for their nefarious undercover, mischief-making agenda in the Muslim-American community. For more information go to: www.FreeTarek.com

fam i ly & fri e n D s

26

O ther V Oices

Who was Dr. Aafia? An eyewitness account

By Andrew Purcell

his document began life in October 2008 as an e-mail to the authors family and friends to explain why he cared so much about what happened to this terribly dangerous woman.

This story has been getting uneven play in the news in this country. Some of you may not even recognize her name. The FBI began looking for Aafia Siddiqui in March 2003 for reasons never explained and the internet is full of guesses, ranging from the almost believable through outlandishly lurid. These internet stories became sensational fantasy. Lady alQaeda Leader Totes Three Small Children, Ex-Husband, New Husband, Boyfriend Around World While Directing Bin-Ladens Biological Weapons and Internet Programs, Smuggling Diamonds from Africa, Laundering Money, Planning Attacks On Gasoline Stations In Maryland These were all real headlines in 2003. Even a James Bond villain would have trouble matching them. There is even one web site claiming that she can be found in the Bible, mentioned by name, as a sign of the coming Rapture, by using information published in the popular book The Bible Code. You get the idea. The first story I came across read FBI Looking for Female al-Qaeda Leader. That was so odd. Dont those bozos realize that al-Qaeda has no use for female leaders? They barely consider women to be human. [According to popular group think]

F amIly & F rIends

27

So I called her family and asked what was going on. Yes, you read that right. I have known Aafia, her brother, her sister, and their mother for decades. They told me that Aafia and her three children, Ahmad, 6, Maryam, 4, and Sulayman, six months, had disappeared one weekend in March, 2003 and that no one had heard from them since. Shortly after Aafia and her children disappeared the Pakistani government announced that she had been picked up and turned over to the US government. The US government denied having her in its custody, and the Pakistani government then denied arresting her. Anonymous sources in Pakistan initially told her family to keep quiet about the disappearance and she and the children would be released soon. In the following months the message to the family was changed to keep quiet and you wont be harmed. As the months went by, her family assumed that she and the children were dead. Aafia faded into limbo for more than a year, until summer 2004 when the Attorney General and the Director of the FBI announced that she was one of seven terrorists who were planning to disrupt the American presidential elections. After that, Aafia and her children might as well have drifted off the edge of the world. Various human rights organizations added them to their list of people whose disappearances seemed to be linked to governmental actions in the Global War on Terror. About two years ago a man who had been held at the US facility at Bagram in Afghanistan was released, and he told a story about the only woman held there. Half mad and crying all the time; subjected

28

O ther V Oices

to harsh interrogation techniques and physical indignities. He identified her as Aafia Siddiqui. She has also been described as Prisoner 650, The Ghost of Bagram, and The Grey Lady. In early July 2008, a British journalist and a south Asian human rights group had collected enough evidence to pinpoint her location down to the cell number at Bagram, and they began legal proceedings to force the authorities to produce Aafia and her children. The American phrase is habeas corpus. A few days later The original Afghani story: On July 17, 2008, Afghani police, acting on an anonymous tip that a foreign woman was planning terrorist activities, arrested Aafia Siddiqui outside the governors compound in Ghazni, and discovered in her purse bottles of liquids, bomb making instructions, and a map of New York City landmarks. During the arrest, Aafia fled towards a group of approaching American soldiers, and was shot by one of them who feared she was a suicide bomber. Afterwards, the Afghani policemen allowed the Americans to take her into custody. The official American story: On July 17, 2008, Afghani police, acting on an anonymous tip that a foreign woman was planning terrorist activities, arrested Aafia Siddiqui outside the governors compound in Ghazni, and discovered in her purse bottles of liquids, bomb making instructions, and a map of New York City landmarks.

F amIly & F rIends

29

The next day a group of American soldiers and FBI agents went to the police station where Aafia was being held and demanded that she be turned over to them. During this discussion, one of the American soldiers put his M4 rifle on the floor in front of a curtain, unaware that Aafia was behind it. Aafia came out from behind the curtain, picked up the rifle, switched the safety to the Fire position, and fired twice before being overpowered by an Afghani translator and shot twice by an American soldier with his pistol. She continued to struggle and shout obscenities until she passed out. Aafias story: Aafia hasnt really told much of her story. She has been allowed only limited contact with her lawyers and some brief visits with her brother, during which discussion of the last five years was forbidden. So why am I telling you this odd story? I have known Aafia, her brother, her sister, and their mother for decades. Over the years these people have become as close to me as anyone who shares my DNA. This is not a jihadi family. If I were to use any adjectives for them, middle class Victorian would work. Think of the family in Mary Poppins and throw in a few head scarves (and yes, for all of you sticklers for accuracy, I do know that the Banks family was technically Edwardian). During the year and a half that Aafia lived in Houston I saw her about once a week at her brothers house. Her interests were pretty much limited to her schoolwork and religion, and since my ability to to participate in an intelligent conversation on science is limited we talked about religion.

30

O ther V Oices

The living and vibrant Islam she talked about, the Islam of mercy and redemption, the Islam of forgiveness and love, sounded very much like the Catholicism that my mother talks about. In fact, once you got past the accent and the different nouns, you had to wonder if they were talking about different religions. She went on to get a degree in science from MIT and a PhD in Cognitive Neurology from Brandeis University. Got married, had kids, raised money for Bosnian war orphans, brought Korans to local jails, and was active in her local religious community . For those of you who dont know the difference, I will use the Christian term you will be familiar with. This makes her a missionary not a terrorist. Okay, people do change. It is possible that she has changed, but I will believe in a change that dramatic as soon as my mother joins al-Qaeda, and Mom is a nice Catholic lady. It is also possible that she was lying to me the whole time I have known her, but anyone who has spent more than five minutes talking to her will agree that guile is not her forte. I know Aafia and the rest of her family well enough to know that if she were hiding, whether in the mountains with Osama bin-Laden, or anywhere else, she would have contacted her mother to let her know she was alive, and if her mother knew she was alive, I would have known she was alive. I am not asking any of you to pick sides. I am just asking you to be aware that you are hearing only the governments side of the story. Consider the possibility that the official story is not true. Consider the possibility that there are some very bad actors in our government who have wronged this woman and her children quite badly.

F amIly & F rIends

31

Wait a minute. I am asking you to pick sides. Aafia and her children were taken into custody in March 2003 and turned over to a series of intelligence agencies. There is at least one witness who can place her in Bagram in 2006. In the face of legal activity to force her release, she was put out on the streets of Ghazni, Afghanistan wearing traditional Pakistani clothing and carrying incriminating materials. Being unable to speak any of the local languages, she was an obvious target for Afghani policemen who had been given an anonymous tip that a foreign woman was acting suspiciously. The initial Afghani account has the ring of part of the truth. The events described in both the initial US complaint and the indictment describes an event that did not happen. The fancy term is perjury. It cant be proven yet and it may not be possible to prove. Aafia does not have the resources to match the US government. I am neither judge nor jury. I am a witness. The writer, a longtime friend of the Siddiqui family, resides in Houston, Texas. Source: Posted by MuslimMatters

32

O ther V Oices

My Memories of Aafia in Boston

By Bashir Hanif

remember the first time that I met her. It was at a mosque in one of Bostons most affluent suburbs. The year was 1993. Muslims all over the US, just like Muslims throughout the world, had been shocked by the images of the horrors that were being perpetrated against their co-religionists in Bosnia. A tiny religious minority with virtually no ability to influence policy makers or the media, having seen all their pleas to save the Muslims of Bosnia fall on deaf ears, they had decided to focus their efforts on providing humanitarian relief to the suffering. Fundraisers were held in every city, town or village that had even a handful of Muslims. Sometimes these fundraisers were elaborate affairs with hundreds of people in the audience listening to the passionate appeals for generous assistance made by community leaders and representatives of humanitarian relief organizations. Often they would be small, impromptu events where an individual or a small group of activists would seize the opportunity provided by a gathering to draw the attention of those gathered to the suffering of Bosnian Muslims, and solicit help on behalf of some charitable organization. On that Sunday morning, it seemed like she had decided to turn a routine Sunday school gathering at the mosque into a fundraising opportunity. What struck me most, and that I still remember, is not just the passion with which she spoke about the victims as she reminded everyone about their obligation to help the suffering. But instead of relying solely on the generosity of her audience, she had something very enticing to offer them as a quid pro quo. She had brought a large assortment of cookies, brownies, samosas (Indian/Pakistani pastries) and other delicacies that she had prepared. Now there is

F amIly & F rIends

33

nothing unusual about having a bake sale to help raise funds for a good cause. But for a young student, living in a dormitory with minimal kitchen privileges if any, it must have presented a host of challenges. Later on, I discovered that this kind of striving to gain an extra edge while pursing something noble is one of her defining traits. For the next couple of years we had several opportunities to work together, as Muslims of the Greater Boston area remained very active in the Bosnia relief effort. I remember a fundraiser in January 1994 where she did far more than give the proverbial shirt off her back. It was organized as an auction. Weeks were spent in planning the event and collecting items that were to be auctioned. Members of the community donated possessions that they thought could fetch a significant sum. Local businesses, from restaurants to hotels to skiresorts pitched in by offering gift certificates for their services. The New England Patriots donated a football autographed by all their players and the Boston Celtics did the same with a basketball. The Saudi embassy in Washington, DC offered two expense paid trips for the Hajj. We did not get much cooperation from the weather, however. Brutally cold weather is to be expected on a January evening in Boston. That day we broke all records. It was not enough to dampen the spirits of those who gathered for the auction, however. As a student who neither had the material possessions to donate for the auction nor the money with which to bid on the items being auctioned, Aafia decided to make her contribution to the effort in her own way. She donated a beautiful fur coat that had been given to her by her father. Perhaps it was the symbolism of one of the least affluent persons in the crowd giving up a cherished possession at a time when she needed it most (it was nearly fifty degrees below zero Fahrenheit with the wind-chill outside the hall!), that moved many people in the audience to make such generous bids for the coat that it became the highest ticket item auctioned that evening.

34

O ther V Oices

I lost direct contact with her after she graduated from MIT and moved to one of the more distant suburbs of Boston. Years later, as I was passing by a shop in my neighborhood, I saw a picture of her on a MOST WANTED poster. While I did not stop to see the details more closely, it seemed like she was wanted along with a number of other individuals on terrorism related charges. Shortly thereafter, her pictures began appearing in newspapers and on television. Months later, someone brought to my attention a letter to the editor published in the Pakistani newspaper, Dawn, written by Aafias uncle. According to that letter, Aafia and her three children had been missing for several months. Her family had no information about their whereabouts but suspected the hand of the Pakistani intelligence acting in concert with their American counterparts. Later, especially after pictures of the treatment of Abu Ghraib prisoners were released amid reports that there were even more outrageous ones (involving treatment of women prisoners) were being suppressed out of concern for their inflammatory impact on Muslim sentiment worldwide, I thought about her many times. The thought that Pakistani authorities may be familiar with the conditions of her incarceration or might even be the ones actually holding her, offered little reassurance. After all, was it not the Syrians, the selfproclaimed champion of Arab nationalism, and leader of Arab and Muslim resistance to western and Zionist hegemony in the Middle East, who had brutalized one of their own, Maher Arar, at the behest of his Western accusers even without a shred of evidence against him? Finally, in 2008, she resurfaced but as a prisoner of the US accused of attacking American soldiers during an interrogation in Afghanistan. Such has been the chilling effect of the suspicion with which Muslims are viewed in post 9/11 America, at least in matters related to national security, that hardly anyone from the Boston area even acknowledged knowing her, let alone speaking out in her defense.

F amIly & F rIends

35

At the conclusion of her trial as she was sentenced to 86 years in prison, in effect a life sentence, I could not help but to think about another young woman who became somewhat familiar during the Abu Ghraib scandal. Many will recall seeing her picture with a thumbs-up gesture and a big smile beaming across her face as she stood in front of the plastic enwrapped body of a dead Iraqi prisoner. It was reported that the prisoner had just been tortured to death by US soldiers and yet there was no trace of remorse on the womans face. For her deeds, all that this woman suffered was a few weeks in jail. Even if we are to believe the charges brought against Aafia in their entirety, do her crimes even remotely approach what this other woman did? And of the society where this system of injustice goes virtually unchallenged? Or was the long sentence inevitable because of what Aafia has been through during the years of her disappearance? Is keeping her in jail for the rest of her life the equivalent of suppressing the pictures of Muslim women prisoners being abused? Perhaps it is our leaders and their collaborators in the Muslim world who have lost their freedom to do the right things, for as long as they are engaged in this Global War on Terror. Courtesy of www.cageprisoners.com

36

O ther V Oices

Aafia Siddiqui Memories of MIT to Carswell Prison

by Hena Zuberi

prayed two rakah salah before writing this I wrote it after her sentencing but honestly have not had the guts to publish it. I have been scared by friends and relatives paranoid in these times of guilt by association Dont write they will come after you too. For what? Writing a blog entry. Fear is a strange thingAllah (SWT); may I never be fearful of anyone but You. Ameen. She set up the table and pressed play. Tugging at her floral scarf, she instructed me to let the video run until the end. It was a documentary on the atrocities being committed in Bosnia. Her kind, confident voice soothed my anxiety. It was my first time manning the booth in Slater Hall on the Wellesley campus. Next to us was a Native American lady selling silver jewelry. She handed us some extra pamphlets and waved goodbye. Sister Aafia, the sister I remember was the heart behind the MSA of Greater Boston. I was a first year student at Wellesley College and my future husband a sophomore at MIT. She was the one who would make hundreds of samosas to sell at MSA fundraisers. A passionate activist, she struggled to find Muslim homes for the hundreds of Bosnian orphans that were brought to the U.S. I could relate to her then, I spent my childhood in Africa too, and like her had come to study in the U.S. from Pakistan. She was one of the first women I had met who was brilliant, educated, religious and a hijabi not many of those around in the 1990s. Pakistani women had been liberated in the seventies and eighties, nobody my age, in our

F amIly & F rIends

37

social circle, covered. Most women who covered then were older grandmothers or TV anchors forced to cover under General Zia. They make her sound so scary, neuroscientist sounds ominous when linked with chemical warfare. Brandeis has a worldrenowned school for neuroscience where she studied behavioral sciences, her concentration was children. Our paths diverged, we both left Massachusetts and for years. I did not hear of her. I was visiting Pakistan and heard about her abduction in the newspapers. Sheikh Rasheed was the then Interior Minister in Pakistan and he claimed (on television) to have no knowledge of her kidnapping. An internet search of her name revealed her familiar face but on the FBIs most wanted list. How did she end up there? The shock of seeing her face still gives me shudders. It is so hard for me to believe that someone like her could have become entangled in anything so terrible as the crimes they accuse her of. This was 2003, I had just had my second daughter. Her child, Suleman would have been my daughters age, seven. It gives me chills thinking about what happened to that poor child, to this day no one knows. She was missing for five long years; her family believes that those years were spent in underground prisons. Why, why her? Could what happened to her happen to any one of us? Recently, she was tried in a court in Manhattan. Her sentence is for eighty six years how long is that? Slightly, less than a century. We will all be dead before that date rolls around. Eighty six years for attempted murder where no one was hurt except for her. When she was arrested some of us foolishly hoped that at least now she was in the hands of the American justice system and the chances of her being released were higher. Eighty-six years!! I tried to find who else had been meted a similar sentence but was led to an unfruitful search of child molesters and dads who murder their kids.

38

O ther V Oices

Even if she is guilty of the worst of what they accused her of EIGHTY SIX years? As she was not charged on any count of terrorism, her judgment was based solely on her attempt at murder, but she was given a terrorism enhancement on her sentence. This case will go down in the books of major law schools on the effect of political influence on the judicial system. Aafias lawyer described Aafias cell, a small concrete block, no light, no windows She reminded all Americans that one day Were going to look back in history and see what drove Aafias sentencingfear, instilled and practiced by its very own government. We want to punish her more because of fear. To further rub salt on her wounds, the same judge who declared her mentally capable of standing trial then insisted on sending her to Carswell Prison, a mental institute, notorious for rape and medical neglect, where hundreds of women have lost their lives under questionable circumstances. I am reminded of Prophet Yusufs (AS) trial and his term served in the prisons of ancient Egypt. I pray that as Allahs mercy intervened for him, it too will intervene for Aafia. As he was rewarded for his patience and constant faith, may she also be elevated in her ranks. How can I make this comparison, if I was not a witness and have no idea as to her state of mind? I read eyewitness accounts of her cruel verdict they speak volumes of her character. She reminded the judge: No one here is in charge of my sentencing except for Allah. None of what you all decide for me matters. I am content with Allahs decision. Im happy and you cant change that. All thanks to Allah. This should shake any human to the core regardless of your religion or political inclinations. The jury did not even find her guilty of firing a weapon.

F amIly & F rIends

39

If you want to save humanity, get rid of child imprisonment. Help other innocent prisoners. Dont waste your efforts and money on me. The money you spend on me is not used for your desired change. Lord knows what happens to that money. Im stuck with these people as my decision-makers. You wont get to alleviate my conditions. But Im very content as is. Dont cry over my case. God wants me to survive so I am here. At the end of an out-of-this-world hearing, when the judge was wrapping up his 86 year sentence, Aafia brought up the 6th verse in the 49th chapter of the Quran, O you who believe! If an evil person comes to you with any news, verify it, lest you harm people in ignorance, and afterwards you become regretful for what you have done. She then asked all the people present in the court and her supporters outside of court to have mercy on and forgive the prosecutors and witnesses and Judge Berman. It seemed almost like Judge Berman was mocking her when he said, I wish more defendants would feel the way that you do. Enjoy your life, Dr. Aafia. She urged Muslims not to hate American soldiers. After being held and broken, physically, mentally, psychologically, a travesty of her former self, the torture etched in her face, she still is able to forgive them and urges us to forgive them, too. Learning this makes me ashamed of my own shoddy, spiritual state compared to her. She has so much forgiveness in her heart despite being caged, and I having so many luxuries at arms length; I can kiss my children whenever I want, hug my sisters, talk to my brother, yet I am so weak. I have a hard time forgiving someone who harms me by backbiting or hampering my work. I wonder in our separate journeys, who is better off? Some words from her brother, Muhammad, whose experience in the US has been very different from his sister, and who is still waiting for American justice to prevail. Despite many attempts to

40

O ther V Oices

visit her, he has been told that our normal rules dont seem to apply to your sister. She is isolated, although she has retained a new lawyer but has not been allowed to contact this person. She is told that her brother has not made the arrangements to see her. Imagine the emotional havoc on her soul, making her think her family has abandoned her, too. In the end you had a judge pronounce an 86 year sentence, but it was Aafia who calmly offered him forgiveness and he almost greedily accepted it and thanked her for it. For a moment one could be excused for wondering who was lording over whom? This was not unexpected but by quantifying the number of years, I think Berman inadvertently fueled the passions in Pakistan. A life sentence in Pakistan generally means 10-14 years and in political cases commuted in a couple of years. People would not have been as upset had he given her life, but 86 is an undisputed mathematical number and is a large number. The reaction was therefore much stronger and in an odd way, Berman provided the momentum that we all thought would be over. Now the emotion has shifted from guilt or innocence to the sheer brutality and total lack of compassion for Muslims. TV channels are on a countdown to 86 years, and children put on school plays in elite English-medium schools about Aafias legend every day people will be reminded. I pray that Americans join in the demands for her repatriation back to Pakistan send her back to her home country where her aching eyes can at least see her children through the bars. Many people go through trials and tribulations during their lifetime. Scholars say, that to see whether the trial is a test from Allah (SWT) or a punishment from Allah (SWT), you must do muhasabah (ask yourself is this bringing me closer to Allah or away from Allah?) Judging solely by her remarks made in court, I can say I believe

F amIly & F rIends

41

this is a supreme test from Allah (SWT) for Sister Aafia her iman unwavering, her night filled with visions of the Habib (SAW). Courtesy of www.cageprisoners.com

42

O ther V Oices

A TALE OF TWO PRISONERS

by Dr. Fowzia Siddiqui

Aafia and Raymond: Who is the Real Terrorist?

n February 3, 2010, a New York court convicted Aafia. The charge against her was an ATTEMPT to kill Americans. For that she was sentenced to 86 years in prison and is being kept in total isolation. The trial was framed by Judge Richard Berman in a way that there would be no mention of her kidnapping from Karachi in 2003, or any mention of Aafia and her three children being held and tortured in secret prisons. Almost exactly a year later, we are witnessing a drama in Pakistan involving an American mercenary who killed two Pakistani youths in broad daylight, and his friends who proceeded to kill another Pakistani in an effort to help him escape to the US consulate.

F amIly & F rIends

43

Those who proclaim the Rule of Law are now using every trick in the book to avoid that same Rule of Law. Those who champion human rights are scrambling to figure out how to turn a cold blooded killer into a wronged victim. Those who were too cowardly to even write a single letter for someone they called Daughter of the Nation are working overtime to subvert the laws of the nation whose people they swore to serve. They talk of diplomatic protocol and the Vienna Convention. Well, where was this Vienna convention when Aafia was picked up from Pakistan and in Ghazni? Where were her consular rights (Article 36 of the Vienna convention)? She was a Pakistani. This man, of course, is not. When did the Vienna convention become a one way treaty? Or maybe it always was. Maybe all treaties are. So why do we have them or need them? Why all this hurry to bury? What does Raymond know? Or more importantly, what was he doing? What are they afraid will come out in an open, independent and fair investigation and trial? Are they afraid that the same things could get exposed that they feared when they shut Aafia away? After all, they all worked equally hard to ensure that Aafia never sees the light of day and now they want to free Davis immediately. Well, I have news for them: All those dirty secrets will come out, if not today, then tomorrow. As an American singer famously said: The times, they are a changing. We are watching an attempt to turn a cold blooded killer into a wronged victim. The Imperial Raj with its local Nawabs has become the Military Raj with its politician Nawabs. We have seen the morphine of false hopes they use to calm us. The politics of division they employ to keep us from uniting. That is why we rejected any offer of a deal for our framed Aafia and their exposed Raymond.

44

O ther V Oices

We are a rich, proud and generous nation that has been brought to its knees by an addiction to foreign aid, social hypocrisy and distrust of each other. We demand respect from others when we have none for ourselves and our own countrymen. Respect is not demanded, it is earned. Before we demand it from others let us earn it among ourselves. We must value each other as human beings whose lives are worth no less than our own. Aafia had given us the litmus test. Mr. Davis has just renewed the challenge and with a taunt. Now we can all see clearly where each of us stands, where our leaders stand, where our judges stand, where our liberals stand, where our conservatives stand. We can clearly see what value each group places on a Pakistani life. The value of a Pakistani is central to our existence in the world today. We are a punching bag for everyone around the world, a convenient target for blaming all ills. Our religion, our culture, our resilience and our honor are ridiculed and we let it happen. We let the drones kill innocent villagers in the northwest. But these were Pathans, Taliban, or whatever. It wasnt us. We let bombs go off across Punjab. But these were the Punjabis; the Taliban again, or just fanatics. It wasnt us. Killings go on every day in Karachi. Muhajir trouble makers or Sindhi trouble makers or Pathans again. Not us. People disappear and die all over Baluchistan. But these are Baluchi separatists. Not us. Aafia and hundreds like her are sold, renditioned, and tortured. Must be guilty of something. Anyway, not us.

F amIly & F rIends

45

We are part of all those people and they are part of us. Whether we like it or not, this is our family, complete with the beautiful and the ugly. To those Pakistanis who hate Aafia, she is still one of you and you are one of us. How she is treated and how we stand up for her will define the level of respect we earn. Just look at what the Americans are doing for their Raymond. He is no boy scout but he is their citizen and they are fighting for him. On this anniversary of Aafias conviction, that wound is still deep and fresh. God has given us momentum. I do not know His purpose but somehow Aafias fate is intertwined with our motherland in a way that justifies her being called the Daughter of the Nation. She offers a unifying theme that transcends political and ethnic and religious differences. She is the issue that will not go away. On this day Mr. Davis reminds us again of how little respect we command and how little our leaders care and how openly they lie. Raymond showed the same wild west mentality as the US warrant officer who shot Aafia in 2008. Finally, the most honored moment for me this past week was the opportunity I had to meet the families of the victims of Raymonds rampage. These are the people who give me faith in Pakistan. The spirit of our nation lives in the hearts and actions of the millions of ordinary people whose simple faith, generosity, and optimism for a better day leaves me speechless. I met three mothers, two pregnant wives and other family members. I know their grief and anger, but in all of this, they offered to drop charges against Raymond and forgo compensation if that brings Aafia home, even though there is no comparison between her tragic experience and his crimes. Such feeling for the sake of another person whom they do not even know has touched our family to the core. We were advised to push for a

46

O ther V Oices

deal and it was tempting, but seeing these pained mothers and their offer, it became clear that there can be no deal on their pain. I pray that we can achieve this sense of brotherhood with each other. By worldly measure these people are not wealthy, but this is the spirit that will resurrect Pakistan. Any leader who betrays these people the way Aafia was betrayed can only look into a mirror and feel ashamed. The Aafia Movement is founded on principle, not politics. Its goal is to unify the nation behind a simple cause Bring Aafia back home with honor. When we learn to rise for the honor of our daughter we will have risen for our honor. When our religious and secular parties unite for Aafia we demonstrate that we are one nation. When Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Parsees unite for Aafia we will tell the world that the white stripe in our flag has truth. When Pathans, Punjabis, Sindhis, Muhajirs, Baluchis and Kashmiris unite for Aafia I know that our nation lives. When I saw all political Parties lower their flags in favor of the national flag in honor of Aafia, I knew that deep down we all want to be proud Pakistanis. How we react to the fates of these two prisoners will be our legacy. Let us make it a legacy of dignity, not shame.

ot h e r v o i c e s

48

O ther V Oices

The Sentencing of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui

On the morning of Thursday, September 23, 2010, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years of imprisonment by a federal judge in New York City. The sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman came as no surprise to this writer. We expected the sentence to be harsh, and that is precisely why in the months leading up to this fateful day, we spoke about the need for a mass mobilization at the courthouse. After Aafias unjust conviction in early February (following a two week kangaroo court proceeding), we instinctively knew that we needed to send a message to the government, because the die had already been cast in the U.S. Judiciary. Judge Berman would follow a predetermined script which would result in a life sentence for a woman already put through 7 years of pure living hell. If anything surprised me it was how clumsy and inept Judge Berman appeared to be in following the script. He really exposed much of the corrupting rot within Americas judicial system, revealing, in a very profound way, the extent to which America has become a nation of laws without justice! What follows is a summary of the notes taken by this observer at that fateful sentencing. El-Hajj Mauri Saalakhan September 29, 2010 --------------------------Notes from September 23rd

o ther V oIces

49

Judge Berman began by walking the court through the accepted facts of the case. He noted, among other things, that it has never been definitively established why Aafia was in Afghanistan in July 2008. As he proceeded to outline the differing points of speculation as to why she may have been there, he failed to even mention the possibility that she may have been kidnapped and taken there! (I found this deliberate omission glaring to say the least!) Berman spoke about the 2 lbs of sodium cyanide and the documents in English and Urdu outlining U.S. targets, and the means to conduct terrorist attacks, that Aafia was allegedly carrying in the bag that she had with her. (A bag that Aafia testified during the trial was given to her when she was briefly released in Afghanistan, in a severely weakened and disheveled state after five years of secret and torturous imprisonment.) There were a number of issues raised and statements made during the proceeding that generated many more questions for this observer. According to the government, Aafia twice attempted to escape from Afghan custody; she had incriminating terrorism-related items in her possession, and yet she was permitted to remain unrestrained behind a curtain in a room of a police compound. Why? Does this scenario even make sense from a security standpoint? Judge Berman made repeated references to Aafias mental state acknowledging the damage done to her psyche when it suited him to do so; and ignoring the damage done when it didnt. He also noted the frequent security searches that Aafia objected to during the time she was in New Yorks custody awaiting trial. The security searches, as he termed them, were the strip searches (which also included a cavity search) that this woman

50

O ther V Oices

already in maximum security confinement was made to endure each time she was moved from one point to another for any reason! This treatment alone is severely damaging to the psyche of any modest woman but especially for a hijab observing Muslim woman. Berman stated that the jury convicted Aafia of all seven counts in the indictment; that Aafia articulated her belief during the trial that Israel was behind the attacks of 9/11; and that one of the employees at the Brooklyn detention center (where she was being held) was conspiring against America. Berman also accused Aafias oldest son (Ahmed) of making contradictory statements since his release; he noted that Aafias former husband (Mohamed Amjed Khan) claimed to have seen her on a number of occasions, in passing, during the time of her disappearance; and reiterated the point that there was insufficient evidence in the record to determine where she was between 2003-2008. (A process that he, at the governments request no doubt, helped to facilitate.) Berman asserted that Aafia came into contact with radical elements while in Boston, according to the testimony of a professor whose name I didnt get. He noted how complicated the case had been, and referenced an incident during the trial that resulted in his decision to excuse a juror from the case who felt threatened by a conspicuously attired observer in the courtroom - an observer who made threatening and disruptive gestures before being removed by U.S Marshalls. (And who I was later told was not only not arrested, but was later permitted to return to the courtroom.) Many of us in attendance that day felt that this unknown person (who was never identified in media reports) may have been a plant of the government, whose sole purpose was to sow additional prejudice in the collective mind of the jury against the defendant in the dock. We also felt this way about the theatrics of one of the govern-

o ther V oIces

51

ments witnesses (a soldier who took the stand during the trial). I believe that may have been Captain Robert Snyder. Defense attorney, Dawn M. Cardi, began by stating she respectfully disagreed with Judge Bermans recitation of the so-called facts surrounding this case. She noted how she had to get top secret clearance a very time consuming and cumbersome process to be able to have access to certain top secret documents; only to later be told, there is no classified evidence relevant to this case! Cardi argued that Aafia suffered from mental illness and diminished capacity, and according to one of the experts at Carswell, where she spent the first few months of her return to the U.S. receiving medical treatment and psychological evaluations - she was possibly schizophrenic. She also argued that while the government has repeatedly used Aafias academic major as an indication of the potential threat she posed to America, Aafia was not a biologist. Her academic focus, as reflected in the title of her thesis, was on how children learn. She also noted that the jury found Aafia not guilty on premeditation (a finding that Judge Berman deliberately chose to ignore). Cardi also noted the WikiLeaks reference to Dr. Siddiqui, and that according to these documents, Aafia was reportedly reaching for the gun (M4 rifle) when she was shot! In referencing the judges assertion that, There is no question about the jurys verdict, Cardi insisted that there were indeed questions about the verdict. She spoke about the manipulation of fear, and asked for a maximum sentence of 12 years without the enhancements. The governments closing arguments could be summed up in the words of lead prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher LaVigne (who stated, in the governments successful pursuit of a Life

52

O ther V Oices

sentence): Any fear that was injected in this courtroom came from witnesses like Captain Robert Snyder of the United States army looking down the barrel of a loaded gun and believing he would die This [Aafias alleged assault on U.S. personnel] was not some random act. On that day the bottom line is, she saw her chance and she took it. In my humble opinion, this narrative was successful - despite all of the contradictory material evidence and testimony in Aafias favor - for three reasons: (a) the way this case was consistently portrayed in the mainstream media; (b) the courts decision to bar certain exculpatory testimony that could have proved Aafias innocence; (c) and the failure of Aafias well paid defense team to vigorously put on the type of defense that a political trial of this nature required! Aafias defense kept emphasizing mental illness, and at one point Judge Berman interrupted (and in his own manipulation of this argument) alternately raised doubts about the severity of Aafias mental state, and then raised doubts about the prospect of Aafia getting any better. Aafia flatly rejected the mental illness defense, defiantly stating in a strong, clear voice: I am not paranoid. I am not mentally sick, I disagree with that! (While there is no question that serious damage has been done to our sisters psyche, I personally believe that Aafia Siddiqui is sane in a morbidly insane world! And while Berman spoke of how Aafia consistently failed to cooperate with authorities he said nothing about the conditions of confinement which, no doubt, factored into Aafias failure to cooperate.)

o ther V oIces

53

Aafia addresses the court Aafia began by insisting she was not concerned with her own welfare she is content with the qadr (or will of God), and that she is not being tortured. She did not say she was never tortured; she said she was not being tortured at present. (This is an important distinction for those of us who have followed this case closely; who are aware that Aafia was tortured when she was secretly held; and are equally aware that, at minimum, Aafia has been imprisoned in the U.S. for the past two plus years under conditions that clearly violate our nations constitutional guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment.) Aafia accused someone by the name of Mr. Desmond (I believe) of plotting against the United States. (This may have been a sign of mental unbalance. ALLAH knows best.) She again referenced the secret prison(s) that she had previously been held within; a secret imprisonment that the U.S. government adamantly refuses to acknowledge. Aafia spoke about terrorists who were masquerading as Hispanics to do America harm, and of how DNA testing can be done to determine the pedigree of a person. She also spoke about not being against all Israelis, but that there is an element among them that are blameworthy. She noted at one point, in a rather light-hearted way, that most of the teeth in her mouth were not her own, because of the beatings she endured while she was secretly held. She also noted how one of her doctors had initially diagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but how she was then pressured into saying otherwise i.e. that Aafia was schizophrenic.

54

O ther V Oices

Aafia testified to how before being brought to the U.S. - she would regurgitate to the FBI the things that she thought they wanted to hear (a mind game she called it), in the belief that by doing so she would be able to get her children back. She passionately emphasized that she is against all wars! She spoke about a dream she had involving Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him), and she advised the Taliban to put mercy in their hearts. She referenced [British journalist] Yvonne Ridleys capture and subsequent voluntary conversion. She said in her dream she saw the Prophet enter a room with American soldiers who were captives of war. The Prophet (pbuh) spoke consoling words to them. Her advice to Muslims was to not hate American soldiers. She also (curiously for this writer) spoke about Israeli-Americans who had her daughter for years and never raped her. When she said this I wondered if this was something she had been told, or was this a conclusion that she had come to as a sort of psychological coping mechanism? (Surely ALLAH know best.) Moments later Aafias voice broke with emotion (and I know that many within the main and overflow courtrooms choked up a little) when she touched briefly upon the anguish experienced by a mother who doesnt know where her children are. Judge Berman Rules (or so he thinks) Berman proceeded to outline the reasoning behind the barbaric sentence he was about to impose on Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. At the heart of his thinking was his stated belief that rehabilitation for Aafia was virtually impossible, as he proceeded to impose enhancements that would significantly magnify her sentence.

o ther V oIces

55

1. He found that the hate crime enhancement applied due to the national origin of Aafias alleged victims (U.S. personnel). 2. He found that the official victim enhancement applied because the alleged intended victims were government officials. 3. He found that the terrorism enhancement applied because the alleged offense was intended to influence or punish the government. (Keep in mind, Aafia was not officially charged with even one terrorism count in the indictment; and yet she received a terrorism enhancement! Berman feebly argued that the defendants purpose or intent factors into the equation.) 4. He also found that a criminal history enhancement applied in the case. (Im still trying to figure out his twisted rationalization behind that one.) 5. He also found that an obstruction of justice enhancement applied, because Aafia gave (in his view) false testimony during the trial. 6. Berman also found Aafia guilty of premeditation, based on the claim that when Aafia allegedly fired the M4 rifle at the agents and soldiers in 2008, she screamed, I want to kill Americans, and Death to America! Later, in an attempt to make it appear that he was truly wrestling with what would constitute the appropriate sentence for Aafia Siddiqui, he rhetorically asked: Do we sentence concurrently or consecutively? In truth, Judge Berman exemplified nothing more than soft-spoken, anti-Muslim, pro-prosecution bigotry; bringing to mind (for this observer) one of the caustic assessments that the late New York State Supreme

56

O ther V Oices

Court Justice Bruce Wright made about some of his fellow jurists on the bench. (As he termed it, Black Robes, White Justice) At one point there was a rather embarrassing moment for Judge Berman, when in response to his deliberation over the issue of whether or not Aafia fired the M4 rifle, one of the prosecutors stood up to say the jury did not find that Aafia fired a weapon. The judge than clumsily remarked that he found that she did. After being hit with what constitutes a mandatory life sentence (86 years), Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was the embodiment of faith and grace. She again partially turned toward the witnesses in the courtroom seated behind her, and counseled the Muslims to not become emotional. At another point Aafia referenced the judges bias which became even more evident at the conclusion of the trial (when he instructed the empanelled jury before their deliberations). She reminded him of how he had emphasized to the jury that if they found that there was a gun in the room that Aafia potentially had access to, that they had to find her guilty on that particular gun related count. What came next from a mindset of forgiveness and mercy would contrast sharply with the poor excuse for a judge, who presided over her fate. Aafia was clearly in a much better place, mentally and spiritually, than Judge Richard Berman and his fellow persecutors were, in that regrettable process euphemistically called a court of law. After Berman pronounced his sentence, a woman in the main courtroom, whose voice sounded familiar, hollered SHAME! SHAME! SHAME ON THIS COURT! (I was in an overflow courtroom observing the proceedings over a video monitor) I later learned that the voice which was then threatened with removal from the

o ther V oIces

57

court belonged to a committed friend, Sara Flounders, of the International Action Center. Judge Berman than expressed his concern about the absence of any psychological road map to assist Aafia in her mental health challenges; while already having expressed his belief that: (a) she really wasnt that mentally unbalanced; and (b) even if she was, therapy would be to no avail anyway, because she had not been cooperative in the past. (As noted earlier, Judge Berman alternately accepted or rejected the prospect of mental illness whenever it suited his argument of the moment.) What then followed became a lesson in faith and spiritual perseverance. Aafia counseled those present, and those who would get the news later, not to be angry at anyone involved in this case not even the judge! This will shock the Muslims: I love America tooI love the whole world... I am one person, and the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, forgave all of his personal enemies. Forgive everybody in my case, pleasethe world is full of injusticesand also forgive Judge Berman. I dont want any bloodshedI want peace and to end all wars. This was some of the nasiha (sincerely-given advice/counsel) offered by this incredible, long suffering, 38 year old Muslim woman. Berman feebly expressed his gratitude for Aafias good wishes, and said he wished all defendants were like her. (Can you believe this?!)

58

O ther V Oices

When Judge Berman informed the defendant of her right to appeal his verdict, Aafias response was: I appeal to Godand he hears me. A few closing thoughts of a personal nature I left that federal courthouse in New York feeling like I had witnessed something truly amazing. Despite the anticipated outcome, I felt inspired, and that a tremendous weight had been lifted off of me. I had recently become truly aware of how much anger I had been carrying around inside of me because of this case (and many others like it). Earlier that week, following a reception with Iranian President Ahmedinejad in New York City, I verbally lashed out at a Muslim leader for his attempt at defending the indefensible. In that moment I felt nothing but contempt for him and others like him (leaders connected to Major Muslim Organizations who failed to issue even one press release, or community alert, in defense and support of a Muslim woman like Aafia Siddiqui!) In those moments, outside of that New York City hotel, all of the disappointments and indignities that I had been forced to endure over the past two years (over this one case) came flooding over me; the doors that were slammed in my face; the back-biting emanating from leaders within my own community; the very personal assaults that were made through my family; the sleepless nights; the moments of isolation; the efforts that were sometimes made to prevent much needed material resource from coming our way all of this came flooding over me as this brother attempted to make me feel as if I was wrong for putting undo pressure on him and his fellow play it safe procrastinators.

o ther V oIces

59

I was so angry that I felt like I could hit this brother, after we left each other I felt ill; I felt physically ill. As I calmed down, I remembered something that President Ahmedinejad had said in his closing remarks to all of the Muslim leaders assembled before him: They want to make us angryDont let them make you angry. In that moment I realized the anger I felt wasnt just about Aafia Siddiqui. It was a volcanic accumulation of all of the pent up emotion that had been building for many years. Aafias case was simply the one that brought it all to a head. Later that night, I pleaded with Almighty ALLAH (The Beneficent, The Merciful) to help me deal with my internalized rageand a few days later in a NYC courthouse, ALLAH answered my prayer in a vey profound and unexpected way. Thank you, Aafia.

60

O ther V Oices

CRIMINAL JURISDICTION
Criminal Law Blog by Defense Lawyer John Floyd and Mr. Billy Sinclair December 5, 2010

WIKILEAKS RENEWS DR. AAFIA SIDDIQUI MYSTERY

86-year prison term for Dr. Siddiqui: Victory in Courtroom is Loss on Worldwide Public Stage

his website has maintained an ongoing interest in the bizarre case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. We have stated we do not know if the Pakistani native is a brilliant neuroscientist or an al Qaeda terrorist as our Government has repeatedly charged she is. What we do know is that our Government has cloaked the Siddiqui case in such mystery and secrecy that we believe she was most likely kidnapped, along with her three children, by Pakistans infamous intelligence agency in Karachi in 2003 and turned over to our Government who placed her in secret detention in Bagram military prison in Afghanistan, where she was subjected to torture and other forms of debilitating abuse. Just months after U.S. District Court Judge Richard M. Berman, sitting in the Southern District of New York, imposed an 86-year prison term on Dr. Siddiqui following her conviction for shooting American military personnel after her detention in Ghanzi, Afghanistan in July 2008, the highly publicized and controversial

o ther V oIces

61

WikiLeaks disclosures of U.S. State Department classified cables has reawakened what the British newspaper, The Guardian, calls one of the most vexed mysteries of the Bush-era war on terror. One cable from the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, dated July 31, 2008 (two weeks after Siddiquis capture in Afghanistan), stated: Bagram officials have assured us that they have not been holding Siddiqui for the last four years, as has been alleged. Earlier cables from the embassy in February addressed the widespread public protest and outrage in Pakistan following Siddiquis conviction in February 2010. At that time U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson charged the protests were the result of one-sided media coverage in Pakistan about the case. The mystery surrounding Dr. Siddiquis strange disappearance from Karachi in 2003 assumed an international life form in 2008 when, according to The Peace thru Justice Foundation, four men escaped from the Bagram prison and began to share stories about a Pakistani woman known as Prisoner 650 who had been repeatedly subjected to torture and physical abuse at the hands of U.S. Government and military personnel. After a British citizen named Binyan Mohamed was released from U.S. secret detention, he positively identified a photograph of Dr. Siddiqui as Prisoner 650. The Prisoner 650/Dr. Siddiqui story was picked up by British journalist Yvonne Ridley who coined her as the Gray Lady of Bagram. The Gray Lady term was employed because Ridley said Prisoner 650 appeared to be a ghost by all those who saw her and heard her screams echoing following torture sessions at the infamous Bagram prison. During Dr. Siddiquis trial last February, the Government went to great lengths to keep the five years she disappeared from the face of the earth off limits to the jury that convicted her. Why? Because the Government, we believe, is hiding secrets about what it did to

62

O ther V Oices

Dr. Siddiqui during those five years. Tragically, whether or not Dr. Siddiqui was ever actually in Bagram prison and tortured there is no longer the real issue. The issue now is that the world believes she was, especially the people of Pakistan. Perception is often more powerful than reality. Should we be concerned about what the people of Pakistan think about the United States? Yes, as long as we are sending billions of dollars in military and economic aid to the country to secure their assistance in our so-called war on terror, we must have good relations with its people. The WikiLeaks cables themselves reflect that far beyond the Dr. Siddiqui case our relationship with the Pakistani government, particularly its intelligence and military branches, is strained to say the least. The Dr. Siddiqui affair is, and will remain, a sticky-wicket in trying to work through these tense political and military relationships. The American public will never know all the immoral, unethical and illegal things our Government did during the Bush-era war on terror. The outrageous tragedy about this so-called war-on-terror declared by former President George W. Bush in the wake of the horrible 9/11 Twin Tower attacks is that it has cost us more, both in human lives and economic loss, than any terror attack the war was designed to prevent would have cost us. In Iraq alone, we have incurred 4,429 deaths and 32,937 wounded or seriously injured while another 320,000 of our returning troops suffer from some form of psychological trauma and an average of 18 are committing suicide each day in this country. In Afghanistan, we have incurred 1,415 deaths and 2,309 wounded or seriously injured, and the number are increasing daily. The total costs of these two warsmost of which was waged on credit during the Bush yearsto American taxpayers is nearly $1.2 trillion.

o ther V oIces

63

The earliest possible withdrawal date from Afghanistan has now been set for 2014, with some military experts saying it may be another ten years before we see a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from that incorrigible country. All U.S. forces are scheduled to be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of 2011. In the meantime we will continue to experience more human casualties and irreparable damage to our national economy and democratic reputation as we wage the so-called war on terror. The costs of funding these wars, both on the battlefield and in the human damage they inflict on our military personnel, will increase exponentially and remain a fiscal drain on our economy. And just to put this issue into a clearer perspective, the House Veterans Affairs Committee was recently informed by prominent economists that the lifetime medical care and benefits for troops returning from these two wars, who were disabled by their service, will cost taxpayers another $1.3 trillion. And what is the end result of these staggering costs to human lives and our economic well-being: the United States has become an international boogeyman attracting more terrorists who are willing to harm and attack the United States than there were in 2001. The terrorists have won the warif not on the battlefield, then in the hearts and minds of many young people worldwide who now see America as foreign occupiers and oppressors trying to rule the world with the facade of Democracy but the reality of empire. We have become to approximately one-third of the worlds population the spit of the earth. In Pakistan alone, with our predator drone strikes, we have created more militants (or terrorists depending upon the locale) than we have eliminated. These drone attacks began in Pakistan in 2004. The New America Foundation reports that there have been 199 drone attacks in northwest Pakistan with 103 of them coming in 2010 alone. Hundreds of innocent Pakistani civilians have been killed in these attacks. Pakistani authorities report that in 2009 alone

64

O ther V Oices

708 innocent civilians were killed in 44 drone attacks with only five of these strikes hitting al Qaeda or Taliban terrorists, meaning that 140 innocent Pakistanis had to die in order for us to kill one terrorist. Is there any wonder why we are so hated in the tribal regions that protect Osama bin Laden and his terrorist cohorts? And hanging over all these innocent lives lost, and the loss of good will among Pakistanis for Americans they have produced, is the symbolic case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. This one woman, who many believe has been driven into the darkest depths of mental illness at the hands of American torturers, now looms as a dark cloud over every American and Pakistani relation. We will never truly have any semblance of trust with the Pakistani people again so long as we keep the Gray Lady of Bagram, who has become a national icon in her country, incarcerated in an American prison labeled a threat to our national security. As a gesture of good will, our Government should find a way to send Dr. Siddiqui home to be with her people, her family and her surviving children. If our Government can swap 10 sleeper Russian agents for four Americans held in Russian prisons as it did this past summer, then it can certainly return Dr. Siddiqui to her native Pakistan. The bottom line is this: Dr. Siddiqui has not killed a single American. We have killed thousands of innocent Pakistanis trying to kill al Qaeda terrorists and Taliban insurgents who pose no legitimate threat to Americans as they sit in the rugged mountains of northwest Pakistan. The political damage caused to the Pakistani government and the loss of international goodwill to our country is simply not worth keeping Dr. Siddiqui in an American prison for the rest of her natural life.

o ther V oIces

65

The WikiLeaks on Aafia Siddiqui

While U.S. diplomats may, or may not, have been aware of Aafias whereabouts, her captors, which included American agents, knew precisely where she was! Anyone who objectively connects the dots of what is known will easily be able to see this for themselves. The U.S. embassy reportedly wrote on July 31, 2008, Bagram officials have assured us that they have not been holding Siddiqui for the last four years, as has been alleged. Well this is precisely what Bagram and Pentagon officials said to the British investigative journalist Yvonne Ridley in 2008. They initially denied that any woman was being held at Bagram. They were later forced to retract that lie, only to compound it with another: Ok, There was one woman, but it wasnt Aafia Siddiqui. What do we know? According to Yvonne Ridley and Moazzam Beg (a former unjustly held war on terrorism detainee), we know that four men escaped from Bagram in 2008, and, in recounting their observations and experiences, shared information about a young Pakistani woman who could only be identified by her number 650. We know that this woman suffered physical abuse and torture; and that she was also tortured mentally and emotionally (as only a mother could be) by having her children torn away from her, and not knowing where they were.

lausible Denial is one of the oldest tricks in the government playbook, and that is precisely what we are getting in the WikiLeaks release on Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.

66

O ther V Oices

What we know is that after a former British detainee, Binyan Mohamed, was released from his secret detention and allowed to return home, he positively identified Aafia Siddiqui, from a photograph, as the woman he SAW WITH HIS OWN EYES at Bagram. What we know is that a request was made, and a determination given, that during the trial of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui at a federal courthouse in New York City, those missing five years in Aafias life were officially ordered off limits. The only time we got a partial glimpse into those missing years was when Aafia took the stand herself, and, over the repeated objections of government prosecutors, pulled back the curtain just a little! Why did they object? Because the government has a lot to hide. And finally, we also know that in March 2003 Pakistani officials initially admitted to capturing Dr. Aafia Siddiqui and handing her over to the Americans; only to later backtrack on that admission - no doubt, after realizing how much of a political hot potatoe it might become in the near future. While the trial has now ended, and Dr. Aafia Siddiqui has been safely put away, efforts are still being made to keep this long suffering woman in complete and total isolation. She does not have the same visitation rights as other prisoners not even with family! Her brother Muhammad has been told, special rules apply to your sister! (Why? Because the oppressors still feel the need to cover their asses.) I believe it was Winston Churchill who once said: During times of war, the truth is so precious it must be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

o ther V oIces

67

What we are seeing in the WikiLeaks release on Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, is nothing more than that in a nutshell; a 21st century manifestation of a rather dubious principle still in play. The struggle continues... El-Hajj Mauri Saalakhan (December 1, 2010)

68

O ther V Oices

The Aafia Siddiqui Case: A New Turn As Lawyers Release Explosive, Secretly Recorded Tape
By Victoria Brittain, CounterPunch, February 14, 2011

n 2003 an MIT-educated expert in childrens learning patterns, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, disappeared with her three children in Pakistan. Was she, as the Americans said, an Al-Qaeda operative who in 2008 emerged after five years undercover, carrying a handbag full of chemicals and plans for major terror attacks in the US, and then attempted to shoot US soldiers? Or was she, as her family, and most people in Pakistan have always maintained, seized by Pakistani agents for reasons unknown? Now new evidence of the kidnapping of Dr Siddiqui prises open part of one of the most shocking of the myriad individual stories of injustice in the War on Terror. It also underlines the recklessness and perfidy of a key United States partner in the War on Terror, which carries its own threat of explosion. Dr. Siddiqui was sentenced in a New York court last year to 86 years for the attempted murder of US soldiers in Afghanistan. Her mysterious five-year disappearance before that, her reappearance in Afghanistan in 2008, her subsequent trial in the US, and the confusion surrounding all these events, have made Dr. Siddiquis a symbolic case in much of the Muslim world. Now a senior law enforcement officer has claimed to have been involved personally on the day she was seized, with her three children, by Pakistani police agents in Karachi in March 2003 and handed over to the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI.

o ther V oIces

69

The FBI put out a wanted for questioning alert for Dr. Siddiqui just before she disappeared. She was later high on the US wanted list, with the US claiming that she was living undercover as an AlQaeda agent. She was a clear and present danger to the US, the then-US Attorney General John Ashcroft said in 2004. For all these years the Pakistani government repeatedly denied holding her, and after her arrest in Afghanistan in 2008 spent $2 million on US lawyers for her trial. After her conviction, the Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani committed himself to work for her return from a US prison. Dr. Siddiqui had become the daughter of the nation and the centre of a popular cause he could not afford to ignore. The new evidence, on a secretly recorded audio tape, is a potential earthquake in the chronically unstable political situation in Pakistan, where rage against the US runs deep and wide, especially as civilian casualties mount with the use of drone aircraft. Already the case of Aafia Siddiqui has periodically brought tens of thousands of people out on the streets in the last two and a half years, in protest at what has been done to her by the United States military and legal systems since she reemerged, in US custody and seriously wounded, in 2008. The Pakistani media have always claimed that the ISI was responsible for her disappearance and that the Americans were involved too. The tape reopens the whole question, not just of Dr. Siddiqui, but of the corroding effect of the US alliance with Pakistans military and intelligence elite in a War on Terror, which has had so many Pakistani victims. The ISI has run its own agendas, hand-inglove with various US officials at various periods, ever since the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and then becoming godfathers of various Afghan factions tearing that country apart. There are plenty of astute Pakistani journalists with the language skills to use this tape to the utmost to embarrass their own security services and the government.

70

O ther V Oices

For the US too there are questions to answer about the extensive cover-up of what happened to Dr. Siddiqui and her three children two of whom are US citizens, and appear to have spent five traumatized years separated from their mother and from each other, in various prisons. It is scarcely credible that high officials in the Bush and Obama administrations over the years were unaware of what their troublesome allies in Pakistan had done with her and her children. On April 21 2003, a senior U.S. law enforcement official told Lisa Myers of NBC Nightly News that Siddiqui was in Pakistani custody. The same source retracted the statement the next day without explanation. At the time, Myers told Harpers Magazine, we thought there was a possibility perhaps hed spoken out of turn. According to the Associated Press, [t]wo federal law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, initially said 31-year-old Aafia Siddiqui recently was taken into custody by Pakistani authorities. But later, the US officials amended their earlier statements, saying new information from the Pakistani government made it doubtful she was in custody. An FBI spokesperson also formally denied that the agency had any knowledge of Dr. Siddiquis whereabouts, stating that the FBI was not aware that she was in any nations custody. Dr. Siddiquis mother was visited by an unknown man a few hours after her disappearance and warned to keep her mouth shut if she ever wanted to see her daughter and grandchildren again. In 2003, in a closed hearing when the FBI had subpoenaed some documents from Dr. Siddiquis sister, an FBI official confirmed to her family that she was alive and well, but would answer no questions on her whereabouts.

o ther V oIces

71

The new audio evidence was secretly taped in a social situation last year; children can be heard in the background. It was given, unsolicited, to one of the many lawyers involved in Dr. Siddiquis case in the US. The source, whose identity has been protected, told lawyers at the International Justice Network that he had made the tape after a social evening when he had heard shocking things about Pakistani counter terrorism, about the fabrication of evidence, and about Dr. Siddiquis disappearance, discussed casually by a senior official. He felt outraged and returned for a second evening with a recorder and got some of the previous discussion repeated. If it can help anyone I had to do it, he said to the IJN Executive Director Tina Foster who has represented Dr. Siddiquis family since January 2010. IJN are experienced hands in war on terror cases. They represent a number of prisoners in Bagram air base prison in Afghanistan, some of them rendered from Abu Ghraib, Dubai and Thailand by the CIA, as well as several disappeared people in Pakistan. The witness is a Pakistani/American and he has been extensively interviewed by IJNs lawyers, who tell me they are entirely confident of the tapes authenticity, the sources account and thus the identity of the prime subject. IJNs source says he was introduced by a mutual friend whose home he was visiting, to a man he identified to lawyers at the International Justice Network as Imran Shaukat, the Superintendent of Police for Sindh province. A full report, and the four hour tape, in Urdu, Punjabi and English, was released by the International Justice Network in the United States at 6am EDT on Monday February 14, and can be accessed here with the permission of the witness. Portions of the tape con-

72

O ther V Oices

cerning Dr. Siddiqui were made available to this reporter and were independently translated for this article. Mr. Shaukat (who is voice 2 on the tape) says, I am stationed in Karachi. I head the counter terrorism department for Sindh province. In the key passage in the tape for the Siddiqui case he is asked by: Voice 1 (who is the witness): Did you arrest her? V2: Yes, I arrested her. She wore glasses and a veil When she was caught she was travelling to Islamabad She was hobnobbing with clerics V1: So what happened after the arrest. Did ISI ask for her custody? V2: Yes, we gave her to ISI V1: ISI or something else? V2: ISI, so we gave her to them. Mr. Shaukat also describes her as stick thin and a psycho, and, elsewhere as not a handler, a minor facilitator presumably for Al-Qaeda and he mentions a connection to Osama Bin Laden. Asked then why couldnt she help them get Bin Laden, he replies, Well, they are not fools. They wouldnt inform her of their forwarding address. And he says too about the children, we took them with us. They were American nationals, children are American nationals, they were all born there. There is some discussion on the tape about the return of her daughter, Maryam. (Two unidentified voices are also heard.)

o ther V oIces

73

V1: Oh, another thing. They found her daughter yesterday. V2: Shes home already. V1: Yes, shes home. She speaks English only. She was in the prison. She is seven or eight years old. And she only speaks English. UM1: Eight years old? V1: Yeah. Children were in prison and they spoke to them in American English. UM1: Is she home? V1: Yeah. They got her home. V2: Its five or six months. UM2: Is she in Karachi? V1: She got home today, yesterday. V2: Well, it goes back to before I came here. V1: I read the news just yesterday, today. Maybe, in the night. V2: Its two or three months old. All that has been reported in the public domain to date is that Maryam was returned a day or two before the recording. But, according to the childrens lawyer, Tina Foster, Mr. Shaukats description is consistent with how Maryam was repatriated to Pakistan.

74

O ther V Oices

Elsewhere in the tape Imran Shaukat talks about how the Pakistani police and ISI work to disappear or to use people they have taken into custody. According to Amina Masood Janjua at Defence for Human Rights, there are currently about 500 people who have disappeared in Pakistan as part of the War on Terror this does not include Sindhi and Balochi separatists. Part of the audio describes the doctoring or manufacturing of documents, creating false identities, using body doubles, with reference to various terrorist attacks, including Mumbai. This is a game of double dealing, direct them right and exit left, Mr. Shaukat says at one point. Such details are an explanation of the extraordinary litany of contradictory stories about Dr. Siddiqui, including curious reported sightings by family members, that were launched into the public domain over the five years after her disappearance. In this John Le Carr world of ruthless manipulation of the vulnerable, it is impossible to know how, or whether, she could have been used in counterterrorisms goal at the time of finding Osama Bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan. From other sources it has been established that Dr. Siddiqui was separated from her children for the five years of her ordeal, and that the two older children, born in 1996 and 1998, were not together, but in separate prisons, and that the third child, Suleman, who was six months old on the day of the disappearance, probably died then. For nearly eight years now, manufactured confusion has surrounded the disappearance and the subsequent whereabouts of Dr. Siddiqui and her three children. The confusion only deepened with the second section of the story, which was her mysterious reappearance in 2008 in Afghanistan, and the bizarre circumstances of her being seriously wounded by two shots to the stomach by a US soldier. John Kiriakou, a retired

o ther V oIces

75

CIA officer with extensive background in Al-Qaeda-related work, told ABC News, I dont think weve captured anybody as important and as well connected as she since 2003. We knew that she had been planning, or at least involved in the planning of a wide variety of different operations. Such statements set the tone for the Western media on her return under arrest to the US. Her subsequent trial in New York, ending with the 86-year sentence, is the third section, when, extraordinarily, Al-Qaeda and terrorism were not made part of the case against her, which was narrowly focussed on the alleged attempted murder incident. Dr Siddiquis background was an unexceptional one of a highly-educated young woman from a privileged, professional family, some of them settled in the US and most of them educated in the West. She spent a decade studying at universities in Texas, and at MIT where she graduated in biology summa cum laude and at Brandeis, where she took a PhD in cognitive neuroscience. She specialized in the science of how children learn, and in addition had a class teaching dyslexic children. Besides her academic work she lived a busy life in the Muslim community in Boston, attending cake sales and auctions to raise money for Muslim refugees in the Bosnian war. She was married to a doctor from Pakistan in a classic arranged ceremony conducted by phone. The couple had three children. Life in Boston soured when her marriage began to break down. There are reports from her professors in Boston that they saw her with bruises on her face. And her husband, Dr Amjad Khan, told Harpers Magazine reporter Petra Bartosiewicz in 2008 that his wife had once had to go to the hospital after he threw a bottle at her. There are photographs of her with a deep cut across her face. She returned home to Pakistan in late 2001. In a brief reconciliation back in the US a few months later she became pregnant with her third child. On August 15, 2002, after an incident in which witnesses claim that Dr.

76

O ther V Oices

Khan pushed him, Dr. Siddiquis father collapsed and died of a heart attack. A few days later, while Dr. Siddiqui was still pregnant with their youngest child, Suleman, Amjad Khan separated from her and immediately married again. Dr. Khan gave custody of the children to Dr. Siddiqui on condition they received an exclusively Islamic education. Dr. Khan came under FBI suspicion in May 2002 for various items purchased by him on the internet when the couple were living in Boston. He said they were for big game hunting, and he was not arrested, but both he and his wife had come under suspicion. In March, 2003, a global alert went out with both of them wanted for questioning by the FBI. A few weeks after Aafia Siddiqui disappeared, her husband had a four-hour interview with US and Pakistani agents, and US suspicions of Dr. Khan were dropped. About two months later Dr. Khan travelled to Saudi Arabia for some time. Dr Khan told Harpers Magazine that his contacts in the agencies informed him then that Dr. Siddiqui had gone underground. He went on to say that he had no idea where his children were a claim he would later contradict. He also told Harpers that he and his driver saw Dr. Siddiqui in a taxi in Karachi in 2005. But they did not follow her. After her arrest in 2008 Dr. Khan told a reporter from the Pakistani daily News that he thought his former wife was an extremist and that of course she had been on the run. After Ms. Bartosiewicz left Pakistan, she had an email from Dr. Khan saying that he had received confidential good news from the ISI that Mariam and Suleman were alive and well with their aunt Fowzia. (In fact at that point one was in prison and the other was dead.) Dr. Siddiquis disappearance in March 2003 came amid a feverish whirl of arrests and disappearances in Pakistan, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has claimed to have been the mastermind

o ther V oIces

77

of 9/11, and many other Al-Qaeda related attacks, and has been named as the killer of US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was important enough to the Americans to be water-boarded 183 times. Shortly after Dr. Siddiquis disappearance, Khalid Sheikh Mohammeds nephew, Ammar al-Baluchi [aka Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali], was arrested in connection with 9/11. The two men were taken to Guantnamo Bay, then to various CIA-run secret prisons known as black sites for torture, before being returned to Guantnamo Bay. US officials then had Dr. Siddiqui on an Al-Qaeda wanted list and linked her to Baluchi, claiming he was her second husband. Her family, and other sources in Pakistan have denied the marriage, but it remains probably the most repeated detail about her and the one that has given her an indelible image as a terrorist. This was not the only lurid story about her she was also alleged in a UN report to have been a courier of blood diamonds from Liberia for Al-Qaeda with a sighting reported there in June 2001. Her lawyer, Elaine Sharp, stated that Dr. Siddiqui had been in Boston at that time and she could prove it. That story died away, but the further damage to her reputation was done. For five years nothing sure was in the public domain about what happened to her and the children, though the rumours grew, turning her into a tragic martyr for many, or a poster for Al-Qaeda ruthlessness for others. Several former detainees at the Bagram prison in Afghanistan claimed to have seen her there, while US officials quoted in WikiLeaks denied she had been. A senior Pakistani journalist, Najeeb Ahmed, followed the story for five years and reported witness testimony of someone who claimed to have been part of the arresting team, which he said was a joint operation with the FBI. (Mr. Ahmed made a public statement

78

O ther V Oices

about his research in 2009, but died the next day, reportedly of a heart attack.) In mid-July 2008 Pakistanti lawyers filed a habeas corpus claim for Dr. Siddiqui in Islamabad. And within days, in Act 2 of the drama, Aafia Siddiqui reappeared, in Ghazni, in Afghanistan, allegedly carrying in her handbag chemicals, instructions for making biological weapons, and plans for terrorist strikes with mass casualties in the US. She was then involved in a shooting incident in a police station in Ghazni in which she was badly wounded by a US soldier. It is uncontested that she was seated behind a curtain in a small room, where, according to the US soldiers, one of them put down his gun and she came from behind the curtain, seized it and attempted to shoot. She says she merely looked round the curtain. None of the soldiers or FBI personnel present were hurt, but she was hospitalized with two shots in her abdomen and brought under arrest to the US. Act 3 was her trial in New York for attempted murder of soldiers and FBI agents with an M4 rifle, picked up from the floor near a US soldier. There were no charges of terrorism or Al-Qaeda links. Dr. Siddiqui had a tangle of high-flying legal teams, several of whom were not on good terms. Her first court-appointed lawyer, Liz Fink, a famous New York political lawyer, withdrew, and the second team, appointed by the court, was headed by Dawn Cardi, an expert in matrimonial and family law. The lawyers funded by the Pakistani government were led by Linda Moreno, an attorney with successful experiences in two high- profile war on terror-related cases, those of Professor Sami Al-Arian and Ghassan Elashi, and who is a Guantnamo Bay defence lawyer with security clearance. Ms. Moreno is also known for earlier political work as one of the lawyers for the American Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier. Her team included Charles Swift, formerly a military defender of Guantnamo

o ther V oIces

79

detainees who made a reputation as a critic of the Military Commission system, and Elaine Sharp. Even the narrow grounds of the case on the shooting was full of curiosities and contradictions: there was no physical evidence on the gun of Dr. Siddiqui having held it, no bullet casings from it or holes in the walls of the small room where it took place, except from the other gun which wounded her. Defence counsel made two visits to Afghanistan to get the forensic evidence, which could, and should, have got the whole case dismissed. Linda Moreno described the defence forensic case as very compelling, with no physical evidence whatsoever that she ever touched the gun no DNA, no fingerprints, no bullets recovered, no bullet holes. The military and FBI witnesses, Ms. Moreno said, contradicted each other, and under cross-examination even contradicted their own earlier stories. She went on to say that the government wanted to scare the jury with stories of her alleged terrorist past, and steered away from the actual case. One key piece of evidence was not in the trial and only emerged from WikiLeaks, which revealed a Defense Department report that was not released by the military, so was unavailable as evidence in Dr Siddiquis defence. The incident report does not say Dr. Siddiqui fired the gun she is alleged to have snatched and fired, merely that she pointed it. Six American soldiers took the stand powerful testimony for a jury. I argued, what happened at the front, stays at the front. The WikiLeaks document would have added to my argument about the dubious credibility of the soldiers, Ms. Moreno told me. Dr. Siddiquis relations with her lawyers were impossibly difficult and she tried repeatedly to fire them. Most never saw her except in court. Linda Moreno told me, She was clearly damaged extraordinarily frail, very tiny. It broke my heart when Aafia did not

80

O ther V Oices

trust anyone, me, the other lawyers although I could understand it. She reminded me of American Indian resisters I worked with way back her resistance was clearly to the legal process and she saw all the attorneys as part of that process. Against the lawyers strongest advice, Dr. Siddiqui spoke in court herself. She said that she had been tortured, and rendered to the US, and that her children were also tortured in the secret prison. The government never rebutted these allegations. But she lost the jury, who looked openly sceptical. Sadly, she came over as sometimes arrogant and capricious, and sometimes rambling, according to Ms. Moreno. Another observer said, she was very articulate, intelligent, well-spoken, and people mistook that for well-functioning. With so much confected fear and prejudice against her going back years, a media that did not hold back in its characterization of her as Al-Qaeda Mommy, and the impact of six soldiers testifying against her, a New York jurys guilty verdict was probably a foregone conclusion. But Judge Bermans sentence that would put her away for life was not. Ms. Moreno described the event: In my 30 years of trials I have never seen anything like what happened on sentencing day the judge walked into court and handed out preprinted power point presentations on how he had come to decide on 86 years Two veteran lawyers not connected with this case, but with extensive experience in other cases related to the War on Terror, described the sentence, respectively, as extraordinary, ridiculous outrageous, and one described the case as absolutely full of holes. An appeal is planned. Meanwhile part of the story of the missing five years is in the heads of two of her three children the two older ones who are US citizens. When they emerged separately in Pakistan, they were

o ther V oIces

81

reunited with Dr. Siddiquis mother, and her sister, Fowzia, who is a Harvard-trained child psychiatrist and neurologist, in Karachi. They have never told their stories, but even the little that is known hints at the horror this family has lived through. The older one, Ahmed, then aged 12, told his aunt that he only met his mother the day after she was picked up in Ghazni, and that he did not recognize her after five years apart. Fuzzy film footage of them together, being questioned in a press conference the day after his mother was found, has long circulated on the internet. This was the morning before the shooting incident. Ahmed remembers nothing about what happened to him next, only that he was visited by a US consular official in Afghanistan who told him that he was a US citizen. The official also told him that his brother, Suleman, was dead. Ahmed remembers being taken out of the taxi where he was with his mother and siblings five years before, and remembers, before he lost consciousness, seeing the baby, six month old Suleman, lying in the road and bleeding. Ahmed told his aunt that he had been called Ali, and several other different names, while he was in custody, and that when he was told his name now was Ahmed, he knew that meant he was going to be moved again. She initially reported that he was suffering from PTSD and that he needed extensive psychological help. His sister Maryam reappeared nearly two years later, in April 2010. She spoke perfect English with an American accent and no Urdu. She was simply dropped off outside the family home in Karachi with a note on a string around her neck. At some stage the Afghan prime minister Hamid Karzai was contacted by the family for help in getting both children back.

82

O ther V Oices

There are very powerful vested interests that have worked to prevent Dr. Siddiqui from ever giving an account that would be believed of what happened to her. The same interests are still at work trying to prevent the two children from ever becoming witnesses in this back story of the War on Terror. Late last year a kidnap attempt was made on the children, despite the family home being guarded by armed Pakistani police 24 hours a day. Two men, carrying firearms and holding big sacks, were found behind the door of the childrens bedroom by their grandmother. The men ran off when she screamed, and were driven away by a waiting car nearby, before the police guards to the house could catch them. The release of the tape gives a lever to Pakistani public opinion and Pakistani opposition politicians such as Imran Khan, who have long supported the family, towards forcing an end to this sinister ordeal, with the return home of Dr. Siddiqui. And there is another lever just now. Tina Foster of IJN has written to the Interior Minister Mr. Rehman Malik, reminding him that in over a year of meetings he has been promising to help in Dr. Siddiquis repatriation. The letter says that now, when the US is demanding the return of the US government employee Raymond Davis, held after a shooting incident in Pakistan in which he is alleged to have killed two men, is the governments best ever chance to negotiate an exchange. The new threat by some congressmen to withhold aid from Pakistan if he is not returned, Hilary Clinton cancelling a meeting with Pakistans foreign minister, and the report of possible espionage charges against Davis, ratchet up a pressure that could change the prospects for Dr. Siddiqui. Whether Dr. Siddiqui will ever be able to tell the full story of what happened to her over five years is another question. It is hard to imagine making anything close to a recovery from such multiple personal and family trauma, in which she was isolated from every

o ther V oIces

83

solid link with her past identity. Did the ISI use her, or her identity, on errands to Al-Qaeda? A minor facilitator, as the tape calls her? The contradictions in her own reported words, such as allegedly telling FBI agents while she was in a military hospital shot through the stomach and in restraints, that she was indeed married to the notorious Khalid Sheikh Mohammeds nephew Baluchi, are manifold, but not any guide to the truth. In her initial weeks in a US prison in Brooklyn, she exhibited deeply disturbed behaviour such as saying she was saving her food for her children. Her mental state has since deteriorated and is very unpredictable, according to lawyer Elaine Sharp, who has visited her several times. She is now incarcerated in solitary confinement in the Carswell Federal Medical Centre at Fort Worth, Texas, the only US prison medical facility for women. She has no contact with the outside world. Three of the four prison psychiatrists who interviewed her for the court said they believed she was malingering and that her mental illness was faked. But, given the record of some doctors contribution to government work in the War on Terror, it is hard to find this persuasive in the face of the known facts of her separation from her children in traumatic circumstances, her long isolation, and the documented brutal procedures of the ISI in many other cases. In the US, none of the lawyers, doctors, politicians and intelligence agents who devised and participated in the horrors done to so many individuals as part of the War on Terror have paid any price in public for it. But in this case there is the force of public opinion in Pakistan, which will demand nothing less than public trials of those responsible for ordering Dr. Siddiquis kidnapping, as well as those who carried it out, and were part of the vast charade that has been played with her over those years. ---------------------

84

O ther V Oices

Victoria Brittain is a former associate foreign editor of the Guardian, and a Patron of Cageprisoners. Her books include Hidden Lives, Hidden Deaths and Death of Dignity. She has spent much of her working life in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

o ther V oIces I ntroductIon

85

Injustice in the age of Obama

Barack Obama, a former law professor, should have a healthy respect for civil liberties, but his actions suggest not.

By Cindy Sheehan - October 2010 - Source: Al Jazeera ince being the defendant in about six trials after I was arrested for protesting the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations, its my experience that the police lie. Period.

However the lies dont stop at street law enforcement level. From lies about WMD and connections to al Qaeda, almost every institution of so-called authority - the Pentagon, State Department, CIA, FBI, all the way up to the Oval Office and back down - lie. Not white lies, but big, Mother of all BS (MOAB) lies that lead to the destruction of innocent lives. I.F Stone was most definitely on the ball when he proclaimed, Governments lie. Having clarified that, I would now like to examine a case that should be enshrined in the travesty of the US Justice Hall of Shame. In February of this year, Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani mother of three, was convicted in US Federal (kangaroo) Court of seven counts, including two counts of attempted murder of an American. On September 23, Judge Berman, who displayed an open bias against Dr. Siddiqui, sentenced her to 86 years in prison. The tapestry of lies about Dr. Siddiqui - a cognitive neuroscientist, schooled at MIT and Brandeis - was woven during the Bush regime but fully maintained during her trial and sentencing this year by the Obama (in)Justice Department.

86

O ther V Oices

Before 9/11/2001, Aafia lived in Massachusetts with her husband, also a Pakistani citizen, and their two children. According to all reports, she was a quietly pious Muslim (which is still not a crime here in the States), who hosted play dates for her children. She was a good student who studied hard and maintained an exemplary record, causing little harm to anything, let alone anyone. After 9/11, when she was pregnant with her third child, she encouraged her husband to move back to Pakistan to avoid the backlash against her Muslim children - which was a very prescient thing to do considering the Islamophobia that has only increased in this country since then. Tortured truth Following the move to Pakistan, Dr. Siddiqui and her husband divorced. Her life took a horrendous turn just after. While Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) - supposed mastermind of the 9/11 plot - was being water-boarded by the CIA 183 times in one month, he gave Dr. Siddiqui up as a member of al-Qaeda. Was this a case of stolen identity, or was Mohammed just saying random words like you or I would to stop the torture? There is some disputed intelligence that Aafia had married KSMs nephew, a tenuous allegation at best, and even so, guilt by association has no place in the hallowed US legal system. Following KSMs torture-induced insights, Dr. Siddiqui was listed by Bushs Justice Department as one of the seven most dangerous al-Qaeda operatives in the world. A mother of three equipped with a lethal ability to thin-slice your cognitive personality in seconds. If alleged association and a healthy interest in neuro-psychology are the definitive hallmarks of a terrorist operative, then Malcolm Gladwell better start making some phone calls to Crane, Poole and Schmidt.

o ther V oIces I ntroductIon

87

A culture of falsehoods Face it, we all know that since 9/11, there have been numerous false terror alerts and lies leading to the capture and torture of hundreds of innocent individuals - and the heinous treatment we have all witnessed to from Abu Ghraib. Additionally, we are supposed to believe that multi-war criminal, Colin Powell, was fooled by faulty intelligence so much so that he paved the way for the invasion of Iraq by his false testimony at the UN, but we are also supposed to unquestioningly believe the US intelligence apparatus when they lie about others such as Dr. Siddiqui. In any case, in a bizarre scenario - to make a very long story short - Dr. Siddiqui and her three children disappeared for five years from 2003 to 2008, resurfacing in Ghazni, Afghanistan with her oldest child, a son who was then 11. She claimed that for the years she was missing, she was being held in various Pakistani and US prisons being tortured and repeatedly raped. Many prisoners, including Yvonne Ridley, maintain she was incarcerated in Bagram AFB and tortured for at least part of the five missing years. After Dr. Siddiqui resurfaced, she was arrested and taken to an Afghan police station where four Americans - two military and two FBI agents - rushed to question her through interpreters. The FBI and military, claim that they were taken to a room that had a curtain at one end and that they did not know that Dr. Siddiqui was lying asleep on a bed at the other side of the curtain. As you read below it will become blatantly obvious that personnel involved from both institutions totally fabricated their stories. This is the Americans version: They entered the room and one of the military dudes said he laid his weapon down (remember, they were there to interrogate one of the top most dangerous people in the world), and Siddiqui got up, grabbed the weapon, yelling obsceni-

88

O ther V Oices

ties and that she wanted to kill Americans. All 53 of her raised the weapon to fire and she fired the rifle twice, missing everyone in the small room - in fact she even missed the walls, floor and ceiling since no bullets from the rifle were ever recovered. Then one of the Americans shot her twice in the stomach in self-defence. It was shown at the trial that her fingerprints were not even on the weapon. The only bullets that were found that day were in Dr. Aafias body. How many stories of military cover-ups have we heard about since 9/11? I can think of two right away without even trying hard: Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch. Hopeless injustice Dr. Aafias side is this: After she was arrested, she was again beaten and she fell asleep on a bed when she heard talking in the room she was in, so she got out of the bed and someone shouted: Oh no, shes loose! Then she was shot - when she was wavering in and out of consciousness, she heard someone else say: We could lose our jobs over this. Even with no evidence that she fired any weapon, she was convicted (the jury found no pre-meditation) by a jury and sentenced to the aforementioned 86 years. Its interesting that the Feds did not pursue terrorist charges against Dr. Siddiqui because they were aware that the only evidence that existed was tortured out of KSM so they literally ganged up on her to press the assault and attempted murder charges. Even if Dr. Siddiqui did shoot at the Americans, reflect on this. Say this case was being tried in Pakistan under similar circumstances for an American woman named Dr. Betty Brown who was captured and repeatedly tortured and raped by the ISI - here in the states that woman would be a hero if she shot at her captors - not demonized and taken away from her life and her children.

o ther V oIces I ntroductIon

89

I believe Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is a political prisoner and now the political bogey-woman for two US regimes. In Pakistan, the response to her verdict and sentencing brought the predictable mass protests, burning of American flags and effigies of Obama, and calls for Pakistan to repatriate Dr. Siddiqui. They know who the real criminals are and who should be in prison for life! At present, Hilarys state department harps on about soft power and diplomacy, but what better way to quell US distrust in the Muslim world than to try such cases with due diligence and integrity. In the US, not many people know about this case. Obviously many people were Hope-notized by the millions of dollars poured into the Obama PR machine - and believed when he said that his administration would be more transparent and lawful than the outlaws of the Bush era. I guess they were mistaken. ----------------------------Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Specialist Casey A. Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004. Since then, she has been an activist for peace and human rights. She has published five books, has her own Internet radio show, Cindy Sheehans Soapbox, and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Cindy lives in Oakland, CA, and loves to spend time with her three grand-babies.

90

O ther V Oices

A Tale of Three Accused Women: And Justice American Style

comparative analysis of the criminal cases involving three young women, two Americans and one Pakistani, the cases of Amanda Knox, Casey Anthony, and Dr. Aafia Siddiqui reveal just how arbitrary and capricious justice can be in the U.S. legal system, and how conceptually flawed it can be in the collective mind of the American people (generally speaking). These three cases also reveal, in very graphic detail, the role that race, class, gender, religion and politics often play in the pursuit of justice in the western hemisphere. Amanda Knox was prosecuted and convicted in Italy (along with her Italian lover and an African immigrant) for the brutal murder of another young female foreign exchange student. Knox received a sentence of 26 years as a result. Now via the automatic appeals process in European law (a superior quality, in my view, to American law), and the recent decision by an appellate judge to allow an independent review of key forensic evidence that was used to convict her - because the evidence was reportedly contaminated by being mishandled by Italian investigators - Knox has a good chance of winning release in the near future. (If I were a betting man, I would wage it all on my belief that Ms. Knox will be legally cleared and repatriated back to America sooner than later.) Casey Anthony, a young woman from Florida, was charged in the death of her own child, Caylee Anthony. Despite the damning evidence against her, Anthony was recently found not guilty of the most serious charges in the murder indictment, and convicted only for giving false information to the law enforcement officers who

o ther V oIces

91

investigated the case. Anthony has now been released to an undisclosed location, and reportedly stands to make a fortune whenever she decides to tell her story. Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is a Pakistani national, and committed Muslim woman, who came to the United States at the age of 18 for university study. She excelled academically at the University of Houston, MIT, and Brandeis University. She also distinguished herself as a young leader of the Muslim student organization(s) to which she belonged, and engaged in praiseworthy charitable work in the greater Boston area. Aafia would later become a person of suspicion (post 9/11), return home to Pakistan, and eventually become a target of a rendition operation (along with her three young children - ages six, four, and six months) in March of 2003. After five years of secret detention and torture, Aafia would mysteriously re-emerge in a weakened and disheveled state in Afghanistan; she would be shot and seriously injured while awaiting re-interrogation; and soon after be brought back to the United States, in 2008, to eventually stand trial (two years later) for allegedly attempting to murder U.S. personnel (FBI and soldiers) in Afghanistan in July 2008. While Amanda Knox and Casey Anthony (young, white, nonMuslim females) became tabloid darlings, whose trials played out in the public sphere like Reality TV dramas, the trial of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was shrouded under a cloak of near anonymity within the United States - despite the presence of a significant number of reporters in the courtroom each day of the trial. Knox and Anthony misled investigators (aka, repeatedly lied) during their interrogations, while Aafia was forthright from start to finish. Knox and Anthony initially tried to shift responsibility for the crime that they were accused of committing on to an innocent per-

92

O ther V Oices

son, and both had strong circumstantial evidence against them. In Siddiquis case both the material and circumstancial evidence were strongly in her favor; it was the governments star witnesses that perjured themselves on the witness stand during the trial (although they were never charged with perjury)! Casey Anthony received an extreme presumption of innocence from a jury that saw a young white female who was facing the death penalty, if convicted. (I predict that the presumption of innocence principle will strongly kick in, post conviction, based on the alleged contamination of evidence, in the appeals process for Amanda Knox.) And while Ms. Anthony had a fair and impartial jurist to preside over her case, Judge Belvin Perry, Aafia Siddiqui had just the opposite. U.S. District Judge Richard Berman was openly biased against Dr. Siddiqui from start to finish. Anthonys jury was sequestered in a hotel, cutoff from the outside world; while Dr. Siddiquis should have been! The jury in Aafias case left the courthouse each day, and were continually exposed to the highly prejudicial, government-fed local media reports that contaminated the court of public opinion; reports that were so unfair and poisonous that they made any prospect for an impartial deliberation process almost impossible. Anthonys attorneys were given a lot of latitude in their defense of their client; while Siddiquis attorneys were hamstrung (and in the opinion of some observers, allowed themselves to be hamstrung) to such an extent, that the missing fives years of her secret detention were made off limits during the trial! While Casey Anthony is a free woman (relatively speaking); and Amanda Knox - who has benefited from a growing defense lobby, and American press coverage that has been primarily positive - may soon be a free woman; Dr. Aafia Siddiqui (who is not accused of

o ther V oIces

93

harming anyone!) received a sentence of 86 years on September 23, 2010, and is now being confined at a notorious institution (known as Carswell) on a military base in Fort Worth, Texas. The well known peace activist, Cindy Sheehan, made a provocative observation regarding the outcome of the Dr. Aafia Siddiqui trial, not long after her sentencing: Even if Dr. Siddiqui did shoot at the Americans, reflect on this. Say this case was being tried in Pakistan under similar circumstances for an American woman named Dr. Betty Brown who was captured and repeatedly tortured and raped by the ISI. Here in the states that woman would be a hero if she shot at her captors, not demonized and taken away from her life and her children. I believe Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is a political prisoner and now the political bogey-woman for two US regimes. I couldnt agree more...and so goes the tale of three accused women, and justice American style. El-Hajj Mauri Saalakhan RAMADAN 1432 A.H. (August 7, 2011) ---------------------------------Postscript: as predicted, the murder conviction of Amanda Knox was overturned by an Italian appeals court on October 3, 2011. Knox is back in America with her family, reportedly working on a book with a well-connected agent - while Dr. Aafia Siddiqui (an innocent Muslim woman imprisoned in the land of liberty and justice for all) continues to suffer in virtual silence on a military base in Texas! Something to think about

BEFORE

AFTER

the ch a l l e n g es aheaD

96

O ther V Oices

Condemned By Their Silence

By Yvonne Ridley September 21, 2010

The first is a huge army of ordinary people of faith and no faith who represent many different nationalities and their aim is to see justice and fair play delivered to Aafia. The second is a small, but on the surface of it, more powerful group of individuals who are ruthlessly ambitious; prepared to manipulate the truth and openly lie to elevate their own position to the detriment of others and Aafia in particular. These are numerous in the Pakistan government, past and present, as well as the last two US administrations and includes the dark forces at play which support them as well as the coterie of smooth-talking diplomats and ambassadors who tread the corridors of power. Then there are the others perhaps the most despicable group of all who are what I call fence sitters and spectators. The great Irish philosopher Edmund Burke once said that evil would only triumph if good people sat back and did nothing, and he was right. With few exceptions the larger Muslim organizations have remained uncharacteristically quiet about Aafias case. Why have they been muzzled? Correction. Why have they allowed themselves to be muzzled? To their eternal shame they have remained silent about the plight of Dr Aafia Siddiqui because they

here are literally millions of people across the world who are now involved in the intriguing case of Dr Aafia Siddiqui and they fall in to several categories.

t he c hallenges a head

97

have been duped by an officially-sanctioned unofficial whispering campaign. The rule is simple brothers (and sisters), comrades, friends and campaigners. If something is wrong it is wrong, entirely wrong and in Aafias case there is something wrong about the kidnap, torture and rendition of a brilliant academic and her three children. The fence sitters in the US are a disgrace. Men without courage or backbone are more to be pitied, I suppose as cowardice is a dreadful affliction in the battlefield that is life. A yellow streak down the spine makes people look the other way, blinkers their vision and forces them to adopt an Ostrich position. This makes it all the more easy for hate preachers like Pastor Jones in Florida to emerge and threaten to burn the Holy Quran. But Edmund Burke was right when he said evil will triumph if good people sit back and do nothing. The leaders of the organizations Ive mentioned are good people but they are frightened and I pray that one day they will get the courage they so desperately need to stand up and be counted. And in these troubled times it does take courage to stand up against an arrogant, bullying, intimidating political machine which brought words like kidnap, torture, rendition, water-boarding and extra-judicial killings in to daily use. Just a few hours remain before the resumption of a trial in a New York court which is being presided over by Judge Richard Berman. To his eternal shame he is one who has remained silent about the manner and style with which Dr Aafia Siddiqui was presented in his court.

98

O ther V Oices

How the hell can a Pakistani citizen who allegedly committed a crime in Afghanistan be tried in his court without an official extradition procedure at the very least? Why did he not demand that the paperwork was at least in order? He has presided over a mis-trial from the outset. He deemed the defendant mentally fit to stand trial but not mentally capable of determining her own legal team. Whenever Dr Aafia Siddiqui a brilliant neuro scientist bordering on genius by the way attempted to sack her lawyers he refused her request saying she wasnt mentally fit to make the decision. You cant have it both ways, Your Honour. Judge Berman has alas, so far, remained silent about the private behind closed door meetings he has had with the Pakistan Ambassador Hossein Haqqani. Another good reason for a mistrial if only the legal team had the backbone to challenge the judge in his court. The trouble is, so-called Dream Team lawyers Charlie Swift and Linda Morenos very lucrative two million dollar trial was being paid for by the Pakistan Government, making Mr Haqqani the overall client. Hmm, how does that one work when the Pakistan government colluded in the first place with the US intelligence agencies to kidnap Dr Aafia Siddiqui and her three children from the streets of Karachi in March 2003? Another reason to declare a mis-trial. And what of the ubiquitous Mr Haqqani? Hes not a career diplomat. In fact, he holds US citizenship, or has aspirations to, making him a very peculiar choice as Pakistans man in Washington. Once his foray into the world of diplomacy comes to an end hell resume his career as a lecturer in America, something [of which] his US controllers remind him of on a regular basis.

t he c hallenges a head

99

His Excellency has certainly been a busy little bee with regards Dr Aafias case briefing some of my colleagues in the western media telling them off-the-record what a bad woman she is! Just recently his cover was blown when he refused the very excellent female politician Cynthia McKinney a visa to Pakistan. Cynthia was part of an international delegation due to travel to Islamabad to raise concerns about the case with the government there. Mr. Haqqani, who thinks nothing of giving visas to Blackwater guns-for-hire and mercenaries heading to the fresh killing fields of Pakistan saw fit to stop the former US Congresswoman from travelling there. He squirmed and wriggled after being hoisted by his own petard, but like a worm impaled firmly on a fishhook of his own making, he could not escape the humiliating exposure of his duplicitous behaviour. If he has been briefing against Dr Aafia Siddiqui all this time, one can only imagine what nonsense he filled in Judge Richard Bermans head during their private meetings. In any other country this sort of revelation would be a career wrecker for both men, but justice is the US is a strange beast. (Yes, this is a serious allegation to make and I would have asked the judge personally, but he has banned me from using his fax and phone! Hilarious really, when you consider he has no legal jurisdiction in London, where I live. Obviously he thinks if he can hold a trial on a crime allegedly committed in Afghanistan, he can have me renditioned and charged with contempt of court.) But lets get back to Dr Aafias case which has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with protecting the names and

100

O ther V Oices

reputations of a collective of men and women in the US and Pakistan from presidents past and present to lesser politicians and their craven diplomats. And if it means sacrificing one Dr Aafia Siddiqui on the fire of their burning ambitions then these ruthless people have shown they are more than capable of doing it. What you have to decide now is if you are a fence sitter or a fighter for justice. Doing the right thing isnt always easy but there is a growing army of ordinary people out there who will continue to campaign for justice for Aafia. We will not be silent nor will we throw in the towel after Thursday. That is when our campaigning will really begin. In the interests of justice, commonsense and decency let all concerned bring an end to this farce now and reunite this innocent mother with her family. * Yvonne Ridley is President of the European branch of the International Muslim Womens Union and a patron of Cageprisoners. Source: Information Clearing House.

t he c hallenges a head

101

Why have Muslims who knew Aafia been so silent?

good friend of the Siddiqui family (who has also become a valued friend of mine) - a man who has known Aafia, her mother, sister, brother and his family for years - sent me the following e-mail message during a particularly traumatic visit that Muhammad recently had with his sister (only the second visit in 2 years): Mauri, Im in Ft. Worth with Muhammad. He is attempting to visit Aafia. He left for the prison early this morning. He never got a confirmation for the visit so he wasnt sure if they would let him in. It is now 12:30p and he hasnt come back to the hotel so they must have let him in. I am stuck between wanting to yell as loud as I can to the entire world about what I know and what the family has told me in confidence. Talk about a rock and a hard place. I have heard from Aafias sister Fowzia. She did write the e-mail quoted in the report, but had not intended for it to be made public. Beyond that all I can do is ask Muhammad to call you. In the eight years since Aafia and her children were kidnapped I have not had any problem writing about this case. I cant put three words together about this. Even if I did, the prison reserves the right to conduct all investigations. No one can prove anything unless

102

O ther V Oices

the prison chooses to admit to something. I woke up this morning thinking that maybe God destroying Sodom and Gomorrah might not have been an overreaction. Maybe the Noah flood was a good idea after all. How you manage to attend all these court proceedings without just wanting to bash your head into a brick wall to make the pain stop is beyond me. Im only dealing with this one case. I have friends who stopped calling years ago. I work for people who make believe they dont know what Im doing when I head to Ft. Worth. Family members think Im nuts. One of my brothers told me flat out that he doesnt want to hear anything about Aafia. He and his family do not come to any family events if I am going to be there. On the other hand every atom in my body says I need to do this for Aafias family. And do more. But right now I am literally ten miles away from Aafia, and for all I can do I might just as well be in Karachi. Im sorry. The last twenty four hours have been a little bumpy. I just needed to unload and you were there.I understand that Eid al-Adha is this weekend. Eid Mubarak. Andy. That email was prompted by yet undocumented reports of Aafias already fragile health taking a precipitions decline; amid specula-

t he c hallenges a head

103

tions of rape, abortion, the possibility of cancer, and more institutional coverup of whatever the truth may be. I could immediately empathize with the anguish conveyed by Andy in his e-mail; and I appreciated his concern for my well-being. There have been times, too many to count, when I have experienced my own dark moments. These were the times when Ive had to turn to The Almighty for spiritual solace. (O ALLAH, The One who changes the hearts, make my heart firm upon faith.) Truth be told, however, some of my most difficult moments have not come as a result of what an external enemy has done to me (or to someone I care about), but from what members of my own faith community are doing to themselves! FEAR in the hearts of Muslim men and women who knew Aafia Siddiqui when she resided in Boston has kept their better angels in checksomething as simple as fear combined with a crippling self-interest. One notable exception has been Imam Abdullah Faaruuq, of Masjid Alhamdullilah (Mosque for the Praising of ALLAH/God) located in Roxbury, MA. His has been a consistent voice in defense and support of the committed Muslim woman named Aafia Siddiqui! True faith, which embraces a belief in the divine qadr of ALLAH (that nothing happens without ALLAHs knowledge and permission) is something that Muslims read about; are sometimes taught about in deen intensive workshops and conferences in different parts of the country; and is something that we often philosophize about in our conversations; but true awareness of this eternal truth seems rarely to travel beyond the throats of far too many of us. True acceptance of ALLAHs qadr also means accepting the premise that if a trial (or difficulty) befalls us, there is also a benefit in it for us, if

104

O ther V Oices

we are resolute, and patiently persevere through the application of our faith. Faith is the greatest determinant of character; because at the end of the day, our true character is best measured by how and where we stand during times of challenge and controversy. This spiritual malady is not unique to Muslims in America; it is a chronic deficiency found among all people of faith. Among the professed believers in Jesus Christ (peace be upon him), for example, it can be seen in the behavior of those who are sometimes referred to as Constantinian Christians or those who embrace the philosophy of Render unto Ceasar what is Ceasars, and render unto the Lord what is the Lords (with Constantine and/or Ceasar appearing to have the lions share of claim on the souls of men). In the 25 years that Ive been involved in human rights advocacy, I cannot begin to count the times that Ive seen people of all hues sheepishly, and against their own consciences, cave into social and/or political expediency. This particular case involving this Muslim woman (and my own faith community) has been the heaviest on my heart. Aafias case has exposed, like no other case or issue that Ive ever been involved in, the politics of FEAR, the politics of SELFINTEREST, the politics of TRIBALISM, and the politics of CAPITULATION to American imperialism. This is an oppressed and brutally persecuted Muslim woman who Muslims in America, generally speaking, have failed to come to the aid of! It should also be noted that Aafias plight places a special obligation, according to The Noble Quran and Prophetic Sunnah, on Muslim men! In my conclusion, let me state for the record that while things at times have been difficult, I have encountered numerous other examples of committed Muslims (including a number of courageous

t he c hallenges a head

105

Muslim leaders) who have stepped up to the challenge, and opened doors so that our sister-in-Islam, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, could begin to receive at least some of the support that she rightfully deserves. And for this I thank you - sisters and brothers (you know who you are) from the bottom of my heart! May ALLAH make us worthy of being called Muslim (one who submits his/her will to do the will of The Divine Creator of all life); and through that submission become a voice for the voiceless, and do our part to make America and the world a better place. Ameen. In the struggle for peace thru justice, El-Hajj Mauri Saalakhan

106

O ther V Oices

A Message from Aafias family

The statement below was released by the Siddiqui family following Muhammads first visit with his sister in 2-1/2 years. Unfortunately, the hope for sustained improvement did not last. The struggle must continue throughout America!

ast April we were both honored and stunned when a hundred Americans gave up part of their Saturday to stand outside Carswell Prison for several hours in the hot Texas sun to support our familys effort to contact Aafia. The actions of those courageous people responding to a call by The Peace Thru Justice Foundation paid off almost immediately. Five days later Aafia was allowed to call her family and she got to hear her childrens voices for the first time in eight years. This demonstration also set off an unexpected chain of events. Within days the Pakistani Consulate responsible for the affairs of its citizens in Texas visited Carswell and began communication with prison officials. On the weekend of September 10, 2011, Aafias brother was finally allowed to visit her. This was their first visit in almost two and a half years. The last time they saw each other was at her sentencing hearing almost a year ago. Throughout the trial and sentencing proceedings they were not allowed to speak to each other and one of the court officers made a point of sitting directly between them so they couldnt see each other. We believe this visit is the direct result of the willingness of American citizens to exercise their First Amendment right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

t he c hallenges a head

107

Our family would also like to thank the International Justice Network for their advice and support. Credit must also be given to Pakistans Consulate in Houston for their assistance and contributions in this effort. Requests have been made for future visits in October and November. We are troubled because this visit required so much effort and persistence by so many. The system says that as long as Aafia obeys prison rules she is entitled to have visitors. We have not been told that Aafia has violated the rules. We have been told that our normal rules dont seem to apply to your sister. We are not asking for special conditions or privileges for Aafia. We are asking that the rules that apply to all the other prisoners be applied to her too. Thank you for your support and God bless all of you. Aafias Family ---------------------------

It should be noted that Muhammads anticipated October visit was canceled in the 11th hour, and when he did get to visit his sister in November (the last visit hes had), he was not able to be in the same room with her as before. He could only see her from the chest up, and she looked like she did when she was first brought back to the U.S. from Afghanistan in 2008 for her arraignment in New York City (barely alive); when she had to be transported into the court-room in a wheelchair. FMC Carswell (an institution with a notorious reputation) is doing terrible things to Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. We must do what we can to make the madness stop! If not now, when?

108

O ther V Oices

Epilogue An Open letter to the U.S. Government

Dear Sirs/Madams, ne of the most common refrains in American political discourse is God bless America. The question arises: does a nation have a moral obligation to strive to the best of its ability to live up to the repeated supplication of such blessings? We believe the answer is yes. We believe that one of the most important indicators of the character of a nation is how it measures up on the scale of justice, and we also believe that this serves as a good indicator of Gods providence for that nation. The imminent Islamic scholar, Sheikh ibn Taymeeyah (12631328 CE) wrote: Civilization is based on justice, and the consequences of oppression are devastating. Therefore, it is said ALLAH (God) aids the just state, even if it is non-Muslim; yet withholds His help from the oppressive state, even if it is Muslim. In that same spirit, American Founding Father Thomas Jefferson (1743 1826 CE) is reported to have shared a deeply held concern with a close confidante when he wrote: I tremble for my country when I reflect God is Just; His justice cannot sleep forever. The Muslim American community, one of the most peaceful and law abiding faith communities in the world, has genuine concern about the quality of justice in America especially (but not exclusively) post 9/11. Of the many cases that we could cite to justify this concern, one of the most egregious is the case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.

e pIlogue

109

Dr. Siddiqui is a Pakistani citizen who was educated and lived most of her adult life in the United States of America. She came to the U.S. at 18, and graduated with honors from MIT and Brandeis University. She married and started a family in America, and also engaged in praiseworthy charitable work while residing in the Boston area. (Two of her three children are American citizens by birth.) Like thousands of active Muslims in America, Dr. Siddiqui came under suspicion post 9/11. By March 2003, upon leaving her family home in Karachi (Pakistan) to visit a maternal uncle in Islamabad, Dr. Siddiqui and her three young children were forcibly removed from a taxi (targets of a rendition operation) and made to disappear for several years. Her youngest child remains missing to this day! In July 2008, after re-emerging under mysterious circumstances, in a weakened and disheveled state in Ghazni (Afghanistan), Aafia was shot by an American soldier and illegally rendered to the US, in contravention of international law. She was charged with attempting to murder U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, and convicted in an unfair trial that was rife with legal irregularities and gaping evidentiary holes. She was subsequently sentenced to 86 years of maximum security confinement for an incident in which no one was injured but her. Dr. Siddiquis continued imprisonment in the U.S. does nothing to enhance Americas image abroad, nor does it advance American foreign policy in the Muslim world. It only helps to create more animosity at a time when the US and Pakistani governments desperately need to win hearts and minds of both American and Pakistani people, as well as the respect of the international community. Dr. Siddiquis imprisonment will only continue to generate increased public outrage (both here and abroad), as her physical and mental condition continues to decline in prison. In contrast, her repatriation to Pakistan would do a great deal to restore public con-

110

O ther V Oices

fidence in the U.S. justice system and the rule of law. Dr. Siddiqui should be repatriated to Pakistan as soon as possible, and reunited with her children on humanitarian or other appropriate grounds. Finally, there is the issue of Dr. Siddiquis imprisonment conditions in the United States itself. While America has a constitutional guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment, the world has witnessed the repeated violation of this professed guarantee as it pertains to certain socially or politically marginalized persons in U.S. custody esp. accused Muslims post 9/11. The case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is no exception. In fact, the case involving this young Muslim woman may take the violation of this guarantee to a whole new level. After five years of secret imprisonment and torture overseas, her human rights (even as a prisoner) have continued to be violated in the United States of America! We, as concerned citizens, and as representatives of the MuslimAmerican community, urgently request that Dr. Aafia Siddiqui be repatriated back to her home in Pakistan as soon as humanly possible; and until such time as repatriation occurs, that she be accorded her full human rights (even as a prisoner) within the U.S. penal system i.e. that she be treated in a fashion that respects her human dignity by prison authorities; that she be permitted regular visitation (esp. with her family); and that she be permitted to communicate with family, friends, and supporters beyond the walls of Carswell FMC, in Fort Worth, Texas. We thank you for your time in considering this appeal. Respectfully Submitted, The Peace Thru Justice Foundation and Families United for Justice in America

For Additional Information on the Campaign for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui:

www.FreeAafia.org - for the official website and newsletter www.ijnetwork.org - to access the official investigative report on Dr. Aafia Siddiqui by the International Justice Network www.justiceforaafia.org - to access the Justice For Aafia Coalition website in Britain The next public support mobilization for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui in Fort Worth, Texas, will be held on Friday, March 30, 2012. For additional information, or to contribute material support to the effort, contact: The Peace Thru Justice Foundation 11006 Veirs Mill Road STE L-15, PMB 298 Silver Spring, MD. 20902 Tel: (301) 220-0133 or (202) 246-9608 E-mail: peacethrujustice@aol.com website: www.peacethrujustice.org