On Cap and Ajrak Cultural Day, Sindhi demand the release of a Pakistani Dr. Aifia Siddiqui, incarcerated in the United States for a false allegedly attempting to kill her interrogators while in Afghanistan. Karachi, Pakistan. 19th November 2011

 Eid al-Fitr, 2011/1432

Today we are waiting. We have had a lot of days like this since Aafia and her children disappeared in 2003. There might be some good news. There might be some bad news. There might be no news at all. That is just the way it is some days.

We have to take the time this Eid al-Fitr to acknowledge some special groups of people.

Aafia’s supporters in Pakistan and around the world who marched in peaceful demonstrations in the brutal heat and humidity of August, while fasting, to remind everyone that neither Aafia nor her missing son Suleman have been forgotten. Faith, resolve, and courage will always make powerful people nervous. Especially this year.

Aafia probably does not know about your efforts yet, but you have made her proud. She has repeatedly said she does not want people committing violence in her name. By marching peacefully you have helped her maintain her dignity, the one thing her captors cannot take from her.

And those of you from all over the world who responded to our request to send Aafia a Ramadan postcard. Many of you went beyond that simple action and Tweeted, posted, and blogged our request: A postcard, a stamp, and a couple of computer clicks that didn’t take you more than a few seconds. An act so simple that it was something you could have easily done while breaking your fast.

We do not know if Aafia was allowed to receive any of these postcards. Her mail is restricted in an unpredictable manner. If she was allowed to receive your cards you gave her great joy. If not, you reminded those holding her that they are being judged for their actions.

The prophet Buy accutane online Issa (Jesus) is quoted in the Holy Bible:

“I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.”*
*(Matthew, 25:45 New Living Translation, 2007)

For your acts of kindness and support we cannot begin to express our gratitude.

Eid Mubarak from Aafia’s family.

SOURCE : Freeaafia.org

The fading Swiss neutrality, which once had a sobering influence world-wide and since Switzerland’s entry to the United Nations a decade ago has faded, shows the same limitations that many nations face when confronted with brute force. The TTP demands the release of Aafia Siddiqui, considered by many in Pakistan to be innocent. Aafia Siddiqui is a neuroscientist, who graduated from MIT, Boston, and later got a doctorate from Brandeis University. She is now incarcerated in Texas for 86 years, convicted for assault and attempted murder, among other charges.

Aafia Siddiqui’s biography has a remarkable similarity to many others who lead everyday normal lives, and in some cases extremely intelligent and successful ones, but at some stage find themselves caught up in a whirlpool of emotions that inexorably draw them into a maelstorm of blind hate with no escape. A overwhelming sense of being wronged personally and as a community has a path that often ends in deep seated violence. Though she was not directly involved in mass-murders, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the chief planner of 9/11, is purported to have, under torture, mentioned her as an al-Queda operative.

In the meantime, Switzerland is powerless to exert any influence on Pakistan or the TTP. Reports mention that Pakistan attempted to barter a deal for Aaifa Siddiqui’s release when Raymond Davis was arrested. The US is known to be working together with Switzerland, and it may well be that money is paid to free the two, as was done in the case of the CIA operative, Raymond Davis.

SOURCE : Groundreport.com

In a letter addressed to US President Barack Obama and released to the media, Lord Nazir Ahmed along with Lord Altaf Sheikh, Lord Patel and MP Muhammad Sarwar have stressed that Dr.Siddiqui’s cause has become a rallying point for the people of Pakistan .

“We must  stress that anti-American feeling her treatment is causing in an area key to success against extremist insurgency,” the Parliamentarians said.

The lawmakers hoped that President Obama, who values the admirable founding principles of his nation, will use his good offices to resolve the matter which is very dear to the people of Pakistan.

The British legislators also questioned fairness Buy Baclofen online without prescription of her recent trial conducted under the supervision of Judge Richard Berman.

“We are informed that in this case there was an utter lack of concrete evidence tying Dr Siddiqui to the weapon  she allegedly fired at a US officer. Furthermore, there was no evidence of bullets or residue from a fired gun at the scene of the crime. All scientific and forensic evidence such as DNA testing and finger printing have exonerated Dr.Siddiqui and on the basis of this we find very difficult to identify how a guilty verdict was reached.”

They also strongly believed that a grave miscarriage of justice has occurred in Dr.Siddiqui’s case which contravenes both the US obligations as a UN member state and the family’s rights under the Sixth Amendment of the US constitution.

“We therefore as that her missing children be located post haste and that the family be returned to Pakistan as innocent victims of the war on terror.”

SOURCE : Pakistantimes.net

Her trial proceedings were carefully orchestrated. Witnesses were either enlisted, pressured, coerced, and/or bought off to cooperate, then jurors were intimidated to convict, her attorney, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, saying their verdict was “based on fear, not fact.”

On February 3, 2010, after a sham trial, the Department of Justice announced Siddiqui’s conviction for “attempting to murder US nationals in Afghanistan and six additional charges.” When sentenced on May 6, she faces up to 20 years for each attempted murder charge, possible life in prison on the firearms charge, and eight years on each assault charge.

In March 2003, after visiting her family in Karachi, Pakistan, government Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agents, in collaboration with Washington, abducted Siddiqui and her three children en route to the airport for a flight to Rawalpindi, handed them over to US authorities who took them secretly to Bagram prison, Afghanistan for more than five years of brutal torture and unspeakable abuse, including vicious beatings and repeated raping.

Bogusly charged and convicted, Siddiqui was guilty only of being Muslim in America at the wrong time. A Pakistani national, she was deeply religious, very small, thoughtful, studious, quiet, polite, shy, soft-spoken, barely noticeable in a gathering, not extremist or fundamentalist, and, of course, no terrorist.

She attended MIT and Brandeis University where she earned a doctorate in neurocognitive science. She did volunteer charity work, taught Muslim children on Sundays, distributed Korans to area prison inmates, dedicated herself to helping oppressed Muslims worldwide, yet lived a quiet, unassuming nonviolent life.

Nonetheless, she was accused of being a “high security risk” for alleged Al-Qaeda connections linked to planned terrorist attacks against New York landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge and Empire State Building, accusations so preposterous they never appeared in her indictment.

The DOJ’s more likely interest was her supposed connection, through marriage, to a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the bogusly charged 9/11 mastermind who confessed after years of horrific torture. US authorities tried to use them both – to coerce KSM to link Siddiqui to Al-Qaeda, and she to admit his responsibility for 9/11 – something she knew nothing about or anything about her alleged relative.

Her trial was a travesty of justice based on the preposterous charge that in the presence of two FBI agents, two Army interpreters, and three US Army officers, she (110 pounds and frail) assaulted three of them, seized one of their rifles, opened fire at close range, hit no one, yet she was severely wounded.

No credible evidence was presented. Some was kept secret. The proceedings were carefully orchestrated. Witnesses were either enlisted, pressured, coerced, and/or bought off to cooperate, then jurors were intimidated to convict, her attorney, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, saying their verdict was “based on fear, not fact.”

Awaiting her May 6 sentencing, Siddiqui is incarcerated in harsh maximum security solitary confinement at New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), denied all contact with friends and family, no mail or reading materials, or access to her previously allowed once a month 15 minute phone call to relatives.
Justice for Aafia Coalition (JFAC)

In February 2010, Muslim women in America, Britain, Canada, and Australia united in outrage over Siddiqui’s treatment and bogus conviction, demanding her release and exoneration.

March 28 was the seventh anniversary of her abduction, commemorated by a global day of protest, JFAC saying it was “to have events, demonstrations, letter-writing campaigns, khutbahs (sermons or public preaching), etc. in towns and cities all over the world in solidarity with Aafia” – for justice, against sadism and barbarity against an innocent woman, guilty of being a target of opportunity, not crimes she didn’t commit.

JFAC published a transcript of the March 26 Kamram Shahid-conducted Pakistan Front Line TV interview with Siddiqui family members, including her mother, Ismat, sister, Fowzia, and young son, Ahmed, who asked “why have they imprisoned her and why did they imprison me?” In response to whether he’d like to give his mother a message, he said:

“I love you and I am waiting for you (to) come back soon, if Allah permits.”

Ismat confirmed some of Aafia’s torture in shocking detail, saying:

She endured a lot, some of the worst of it including “six men….strip(ping) her naked. All her clothes would be removed. She told this to the Pakistani senators too, that they would strip her naked, then tie her hands behind her back, and then they would take her, dragging her by the hair. You cannot imagine the cruelty they have done to her. They would take her like this to the corridor and film her there.”

“After that, they observed that she would read the Qu’ran, from memory and from the book. They again would send six, seven men, who would strip her naked and misbehave etc. They took the Qu’ran and threw it at her feet and told her that only if you walk on the Qu’ran will we return (it) to you. She would cry and shout that she would not do it. Then they would beat her with their rifle butts so much that she would be bloodied. All her face and body would be injured. Then they used to pull out her hair one by one, just like this….They threatened (to) take her to the court like this, naked.”

After “beat(ing) her so much that she bled….they made her lie on a bed. Then they tied her hands and feet – hands and feet both tied so that she (could) not even… scratch her wounds. Then they applied torture to the soles of her feet and head. They put her in some machines to make her lose her mental stability. They gave her such injections on the pretext of medical treatment.” When she pleaded not to do it, “they would make her unconscious and then give them to her. Such is (their) cruelty.”

“This epic cruelty – and look at (the) Islamic world….They are all silent and making their palaces in Hell….She was not even a criminal in their law. And she has done no crime. They did not accuse her of terrorism. She is not a terrorist.”

Her sister Fowzia said “It is all on tape. I am not making this up. They are sadists or whatever. All the strip searching was video-taped. (She called Aafia) a poster child for this torture and rendition,” one of many others brutalized in American prisons. Court testimony revealed that her children were also tortured, Ahmed later released on condition he say nothing, two still missing and presumed murdered. “I think even Genghis Khan did not do this,” said Fowzia.

In an August 2008 address to Pakistan’s Senate, Fowzia explained that “Aafia (can’t) get justice in the US….They are sure to make her out to be a major terror figure to mask the five years of torture, rape and child molestation as reported by human rights groups.”

Her case is much more important than “my sister or one woman. Her torture is a crime beyond anything she was ever accused of (which was basically nothing) and this is a slap on the honor of our nation and the whole of humanity. The perpetrators of those crimes are the ones who need to be brought to account. That is the real crime of terror here.”

Fowzia appealed for Aafia’s extradition to Pakistan, despite little hope of expecting a government complicit in crime to cooperate beyond rhetoric. At first, it denied knowledge, then, after meeting with family, interior minister Faisal Saleh Hayat and other officials promised to work for her release, still denying complicity for what happened.

Because her ordeal sparked nationwide protests, Pakistan’s government is in damage control, apparently wants to shift blame to Washington, investigating officer Shahid Qureshi, in a report to the judicial magistrate, saying “FBI intelligence agents without any warrants or notice” committed the abduction – knowing full well about ISI’s complicity.

During conflnement, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said Siddiqui had a kidney and her teeth removed. Her nose was broken and not properly set. Her gun shot wound was improperly treated. Reuters reported that she lost part of her intestines and still bleeds internally from poor treatment. Those around her notice she’s deathly pale because of extreme trauma and pain.

After years of horrific torture and abuse, a federal Bureau of Prisons psychological evaluation diagnosed her condition to be “depressive type psychosis” besides the destructive physical toll on her body.
World Outrage and Support

The Muslim Justice Initiative (MJI) said Siddiqui’s “recent guilty verdict….shocked and outraged masses across the globe” in announcing an April 2 online webinar discussion on her behalf, featuring her brother Mohammed, sister Fawzia, noted UK journalist and Siddiqui advocate Yvonne Ridley, and Tina Foster, Executive Director of the International Justice Network (IJN). Information on the event can be found at muslimsforjustice.org.

On February 3, Siddiqui’s conviction date, IJN said the following:

It “represents the family of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui in the United States,” its attorneys “monitoring her trial, which began on January 19 and ended with a guilty verdict today in US Federal Court in the Southern District of New York.”

“Today marks the close of another sad chapter in the life of our sister, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. Today she was unjustly found guilty. Though she was not charged with any terrorism-related offense, Judge Berman permitted the prosecution’s witnesses to characterize our sister as a terrorist – which, based on copious (exculpatory) evidence, she clearly is not. Today’s verdict is one of the many legal errors that allowed the prosecution to build a case against our sister based on hate, rather than fact. We believe that as a result, she was denied a fair trial, and today’s verdict must be overturned on appeal.”

Himself victimized by US torture, including at Bagram, author of “Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim’s Journey to Guantanamo and Back,” Moassam Begg (like others), called Aafia “the Grey Lady of Bagram because she (was) almost a ghost, a spectre whose cries and screams continue to haunt those who heard her.” So much so that for six days in 2005, male prisoners staged a hunger strike in protest.

After sentencing, her next journey may be to isolated life confinement in federal Supermax hell – according to the US Department of Justice National Institute of Corrections, intended for the most dangerous criminals, guilty of “repetitive assaultive or violent institutional behavior,” the worst of the worst who threaten society or national security.

Hardly the place for a woman called shy, soft-spoken, deeply religious, polite, studious, thoughtful, and considerate of others, especially persecuted Muslims being brutalized in America’s global gulag, courtesy of an administration that pays lip service to ending torture but practices it as sadistically as George Bush and the worst of history’s tyrants.

SOURCE : Baltimorechronicle.com

This is the instrumental track I recorded for our beloved sister, Dr Aafia Siddiqi, who has recently been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the USA. The story and conviction of Dr. Aafia exposes the most heinous and inhumane face of western democracy and the sham of US justice. Furthermore, the Zardari government’s complicity in the horrific treatment of this Muslim woman is criminal. The trial was aimed not at reaching the truth but at protecting the US government from embarrassment due to the horrendous ordeal suffered by this young mother under the hands of its own soldiers. Thousands of men and woman prisoners are suffering the same horrific oppression which no one should face. How much longer should Muslims continue to suffer at the hands of these oppressors?

“The believers, in their love, mutual kindness, and close ties, are like one
body; when any part complains, the whole body responds to it with
wakefulness and fever.” [Muslim],

“The faithful are like one man: if his eyes suffers, his whole body
suffers.” [Muslim],

On Monday, parliamentarians from the ruling party and opposition benches in the Pakistani Senate, which is the upper house of parliament, adopted a resolution expressing grave concern over the US court conviction of Dr. Siddiqui last month, a Press TV correspondent reported on Monday.

A jury in the United States found Aafia Siddiqui guilty on charges of shooting at FBI agents and US military personnel in a police station in Ghazni, Afghanistan, where she was being interrogated in 2008.

She was convicted in a New York court on February 3, 2010 and could face life in prison when sentenced on May 6.

The Pakistani MPs passed the resolution one day after thousands of people held an anti-US demonstration in Islamabad in which they called for the release of Dr. Siddiqui.

SOURCE : Presstv.ir

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was recently found guilty by a US jury of charges that she has vehemently denied to have committed. The main charge against her was using a US warrant officer’s M-4 rifle while being interrogated in 2008 for an alleged possession of ‘documents detailing a ‘terrorist’ plan.’

“Pakistan would provide her legal assistance as the case passes through subsequent stages in the judicial system, the US government may look at the possibility of her repatriation to Pakistan under the Prisoner Exchange Agreement,” said Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari to the visiting US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke in Islamabad, a Press TV correspondent reported late Thursday.

Siddiqui vanished in Karachi, Pakistan with her three children on March 30, 2003. US officials allege that she was seized on July 17, 2008 by Afghan security forces in the Ghazni Province while in possession of documents, including formulas for explosives and chemical weapons.

Human rights groups allege that Siddiqui had been secretly held and tortured at the infamous US base in Bagram, north of Kabul, for five years prior to the alleged 2008 shooting.

In the final stages of her trial in the Manhattan Federal Court, Siddiqui’s lawyer Linda Moreno also argued that “there is no physical evidence that an M-4 rifle was touched by Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, let alone fired.”

Siddiqui’s case has been very controversial since most of the evidence against her are circumstantial and based on US intelligence and military agents in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The harsh treatment of the US-educated scientist and her five-year secret detention and shooting has provoked an outrage in the Muslim world, especially her native country of Pakistan.

SOURCE : Presstv.ir

The JI leaders said that it has become loud and clear that American justice system is based on discrimination and it has duality while delivering justice to Muslims. They angered over the American court by saying that witness were proved false but it convicted Aafia as guilty for the sake of protecting the moral of American soldiers which amounts to denial of justice by the court. The JI leaders said that the court issued a verdict that is based on prejudice and it afflicts the a woman and the entire Muslim Ummah.

In another resolution the JI Sindh lamented over the situation in Karachi which according it was disappointing. It read that the surge in crime rate and fast declining business and social activities have been depriving the citizens of Karachi of a peaceful environment. The parties at the helm of affairs have no concern with the problems of the masses and are only protecting their own entrenched interests of occupying plots and land grabbing. The JI leaders said that all coalition partners were part of this ongoing snap of crime so government is bound to provide compensation to all affected families of these tragedies and it should also ensure to implement the decisions decided in All Parties Conference organized by the Sindh government at CM’s House.

The JI leaders demanded to redress the declining standard of education in the province. They said that literacy rate though claimed by government increasing but the ground reality is that it has gone miles back. They urged upon the government to control increasing trend of carrying ammunition in the universities which has ended in killing of many youths in recent past.

They also pointed at the killings of many youths at Shah Latif University, Sindh University and Tando Jam Agriculture University where many students have lost their lives in firing between different student’s factions and this led to suspension of educational activities in the institutions. They asked the authorities to improve security measures at these universities and secure education and future of young students.

SOURCE : Nation.com.pk

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.

Protest in Pakistan protesting conviction of Dr Aafia Siddiqui

It does not matter how the information is obtained or if any of it is true. Nothing illustrates the depraved nature of this industry more than the bizarre and convoluted case of the recently convicted Pakistani citizen Aafia Siddiqui.

On Wednesday, Feb. 3, a New York jury convicted the U.S.-educated neuroscientist of attempted murder for shooting at U.S. forces while in custody in Afghanistan in 2008.

Siddiqui was picked up in July 2008 for “loitering” and “acting suspiciously” in a square in Ghazni, Afghanistan, in the company of a boy who turned out to be her son. She supposedly had in her possession chemical substances and instructions for creating biological weapons. However, she was never tried for terrorism or espionage, but rather for attempted murder of the U.S. agents who were holding her in jail in Afghanistan after she was picked up. And while no Americans were injured, Siddiqui herself was shot and wounded.

The jury in her case reached a unanimous verdict, finding Siddiqui guilty of attempted murder, armed assault and using and carrying a firearm. She faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Defense lawyers argued there was no physical evidence that Siddiqui had touched the rifle that was fired. There were no fingerprints on the gun or bullet holes in the walls. Furthermore, the witness testimony was conflicting. There were no casings on the floor. On the other hand, there was plenty of evidence that Siddiqui had been shot. For instance, the casings from the revolver that shot her were found on the scene.

There were many odd circumstances surrounding her arrest and trial, including the fact that while she allegedly committed her crime in Afghanistan, her trial took place in New York. The jury was told that she was brought to the United States to face charges because she opened fire on U.S. soldiers. However, the jury did not get to hear her whole story, that she had been missing for five years and that she was a suspected al-Qaeda operative. Yet, she was never charged with that in this case.

After living in the United States for 11 years, Siddiqui moved back to Pakistan with her husband and children after 9/11. Then, in 2003, Siddiqui mysteriously vanished from her hometown in Pakistan. She disappeared along with all three of her children, two of whom were born in the United States and are American citizens. Her two younger children are still missing.

It is still unclear why she was kidnapped in 2003 and re-arrested in 2008.

Human rights groups have long alleged that Siddiqui was forcibly disappeared by Pakistani authorities in 2003 and interrogated and tortured at the behest of the United States. During the course of her trial, Siddiqui claimed to have been held in a secret prison by the Americans.

As part of the “intelligence industry,” the U.S. intelligence community relies heavily on the Pakistani intelligence community. In the case of Dr. Siddiqui, it is believed that she was picked up by the Pakistanis. Although the Pakistanis might have control over their prisoners physically, U.S. intelligence has access to question them. (Harper’s, November 2009)

A vicious cycle

It is a vicious cycle inherent in the “intelligence industry.” Intelligence is produced by detainees by any and all means. There is evidence of secret prisons, interrogations and torture. It means a lot of false intelligence is being generated. That leads to more people being detained. If you are associated with someone in detention, you yourself get on the radar. And the cycle goes on.

The irony is, there are relatively few terrorists in the world, and even fewer plots against the United States. If the U.S. capitalist ruling class was truly interested in solving the issue of terrorist threats against this country, they would immediately withdraw from the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen and stop supporting the Israeli military. And give reparations so these nations can rebuild their infrastructures and jump start their economies.

This they will not do, however, because the “war on terror” is nothing but a pretext for achieving geo-strategic domination of the Middle East, Afghanistan and other key regions.

The sentencing of Aafia Siddiqui will not take place for several months. In the meantime, much of the Pakistani media and citizenry are extremely upset. They feel her conviction is a travesty of justice, which it is. Instead of being a terrorist, Dr. Siddiqui is a torture victim, a symbol for the hundreds if not thousands of people who have disappeared as part of the U.S.-led war on terror.

SOURCE : Pslweb.org