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Dr Aafia did or didn’t?
By Fasi Zaka
I admit that there has been one topic I have been reluctant to write about for a year now, despite occasional prodding from the readers. When I first heard about Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s case, I immediately held an uninformed opinion; I thought she was guilty. It didn’t matter to me that she was a woman, and I felt if she had been Al Qaeda then she deserved punishment.
This gut reaction probably came from the circumstantial evidence surrounding the case, of which there is a considerable amount. So, instead of writing something that was obviously tainted with bias, I chose not to write anything. Only recently, when I was asked to an interview with an American radio station did I realise that I needed to know more than what I superficially did. While researching the case, I came across a website dedicated to Dr Aafia, and it bemoaned the lack of interest from the liberal media, of which I concede I could fall into, and in many ways that criticism is valid.
Aafia’s ordeal
This is in response to the article ‘Caravans and howling of stray animals’ by Farhat Taj in which Taj blames the media to be involved in a pro-Taliban, high profile campaign for the release of Pakistan’s scientist Dr Aafia Siddiqui, for whom she believes, the entire nation is constantly promoting a one-sided view. Dr Aafia and her entire family, like many others, has been the victim of war on terror.
While the lamenting of others has gone unheard, the tragedy of Aafia became known when a British journalist wrote about her wretched cries from Afghanistan’s Abu Ghraib prison where she was confined in a dark cell for 5 years without trial, charging her for harbouring links with Al-Qaeda, which later on shifted to attempted murder of a US soldier, who was irresponsible enough to leave his gun within easy reach of the convict.
Afia-Caust Deniers and Revisionists
By : Bilal A. Siddiqui
While almost everyone in Pakistan is concerned about the plight of a Muslim neurologist abducted by Pakistani intelligence agencies , handed over to the Americans and tortured for more than five years along with her three children (the youngest being just 6 months old at the time of abduction), there is the predictable silent majority of “liberals” who have once again chosen to defy common sense and the real, humane majority. A point in case is a recent and seemingly scholarly article written by Anas Abbas:
Let Aafia go home
BY AIJAZ ZAKA SYED
Reading all those legal thrillers by John Grisham and watching Hollywood blockbusters that portray innocent individuals framed and ensnared by a powerful system, one always thought: Of course, these things do not happen in real life.
I am not so sure anymore though. The abduction, persecution and now conviction of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, an MIT-educated neuroscientist, by the US authorities reads like a regulation Grisham thriller written for Hollywood.
Aafia disappeared with her three children on her way to Karachi airport for Islamabad way back in 2003. Five years later, she was presented in a New York court in March 2008 as “a top Al-Qaeda terrorist” and the “most dangerous woman on earth,” as US Attorney-General Ashcroft put it.
Dr Aafia’s appeal
THE aftermath of Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s conviction nearly two weeks ago in a New York courtroom has seen several protests. On Feb 13, students from universities all over Islamabad congregated at Aapbara Chowk and demanded her release, while pointing out the silence of human rights groups.
A day earlier, Lahore’s Liberty Chowk saw students and faculty members of several educational institutions come together to protest against Dr Aafia’s continued detention. Many other protests have been witnessed since the verdict was announced.
While the facts of Dr Aafia’s case remain shrouded in secrecy, the transformation of her case from one of suspected terrorism to Pakistan’s cause célèbre is undeniable. No other female figure facing serious criminal charges has ever garnered so much public outpouring of support in Pakistan’s recent history.
Behind the conviction of Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui
By: Anne Gamboni
U.S. government, military–the real terrorists
One of the vile byproducts of the “global war on terror,” now in its ninth year, has been the “commodification” of intelligence gathering. Information is needed, President Obama stated in a major policy speech in May 2009, not just to prosecute those who commit attacks but to prevent attacks before they happen. Such a war on terror has no physical boundaries and the demand for information no limits. A system of secret and known prisons and spy agencies like the CIA and its lackeys around the globe are needed to run this dirty business.
Aafia’s insistence to testify was her real undoing: report
By Abrar Mustafa
ISLAMABAD: While a large number of Pakistanis continue to believe that Aafia Siddiqui, now held guilty by a jury in the United States, was picked up in the year 2003 from Karachi, surprisingly even her own testimony in the court did not touch upon the real circumstances of her disappearance. Official documents available with this scribe in which the Pakistan Embassy in the US updated the foreign minister of the details of the case, there are many aspects of the case that have not been reported in the media in the country.
These documents reveal that the real undoing for Dr Aafia Siddiqui was her insistence that she would testify in the court while she had been advised not to do so by her legal defence team. “She even refused to talk to her mother on the phone before testifying in front of the court, as her mother wanted to dissuade her from going against the legal advice,” a source said and added that a Pakistan Embassy official of the level of minister also met her to convince her against testifying in person.
Aafia Siddiqui: Justice was not served
By Moin Ansari
The Terror-Industrial Complex
The conviction of the Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui in New York last week of trying to kill American military officers and FBI agents illustrates that the greatest danger to our security comes not from al-Qaida but the thousands of shadowy mercenaries, kidnappers, killers and torturers our government employs around the globe.
The bizarre story surrounding Siddiqui, 37, who received an undergraduate degree from MIT and a doctorate in neuroscience from Brandeis University, often defies belief. Siddiqui, who could spend 50 years in prison on seven charges when she is sentenced in May, was by her own account abducted in 2003 from her hometown of Karachi, Pakistan, with her three children—two of whom remain missing—and spirited to a secret U.S. prison where she was allegedly tortured and mistreated for five years. The American government has no comment, either about the alleged clandestine detention or the missing children.
Aafia Siddiqui: Victimized by American Injustice
by Stephen Lendman
On February 3, a Department of Justice press release headlined “Aafia Siddiqui Found Guilty in Manhattan Federal Court of Attempting to Murder US Nationals in Afghanistan and Six Additional Charges.”
At her scheduled May 6 sentencing, she “faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each of the attempted murder and armed assault charges; life in prison on the firearms charge; and eight years in prison on each of the remaining assault charges. SIDDIQUI faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison on the firearms charge.”
On February 3, New York Times writer CJ Hughes headlined: “Pakistani Scientist Found Guilty of Shootings,” convicting her on all seven counts, including attempted murder – “capping a trial that drew notice for its terrorist implications as well as its theatrics,” but omitting convincing evidence of Siddiqui’s innocence.
The Aafia Siddiqui I Saw
By Abu Sabaya
In the Name of Allâh, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful
“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.”
“She is a high security risk.”
- Christopher LaVigne, assistant US attorney, on August 11th when trying to convince a judge to prevent Aafia from seeing a doctor for her gunshot wound.
