Lahore(Pakistan)4 August 2008.
Dr.Aafia Siddique earned her P.hd from the prestigeous MIT (USA).Failing to get a job in Pakistan she returned to the USA in Feburary 2003 to apply for one – as well as for immigration.Before the month was over – getting a mail box to recieve mail in her absence- she returned to Pakistan.
Dr.Aafia at the time of her graduation
At the time she was a 30 years old bright,brilliant and energetic mother of three sons;the eldest aged four and the youngest only a month old babe,seeking like so many the world over the gleam of the American dream.Instead she underwent an American nightmare. Classified as a missing person for over five years , she has suddenly re-emerged reportedly having lost her sanity in US custody -and with a fresh bullet hole in her torso.The whereabouts of her three minor children who had also disappeared with her is as yet unknown.
Ironically the treatment Aafia recieved at the hands of her American captors is in such vivid contrast to the one which Yvonne Ridley recieved from the ‘taliban'(so much so that she converted to Islam after her release) that it has forced many in Pakistan – and equally many good Americans – to wonder as to which of the two captors were more becoming in their conduct.Inspite of Pakistan government and intelligence agencies efforts to hush up the matter,the story is spreading like wild fire -and is certain to further tarnish the American image as well as increase hatred for America.The US troops seem to have shot themselves – as well as their Pakistani and Afghan allies in the foot – for the resultant outrage is certain to benefit the terrorist cause unless appropriate remedial measures are initiated soon.To get an idea of the outcry see http://www.teeth.com.pk/blog/
Dr. Afia left her mother’s house in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Karachi, , along with her three children, in a Metro-cab on March 30, 2003 to catch a flight for Rawalpindi, but never reached the airport. Initial press reports suggested that she was handed over to the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)who wanted her for questioning.A few days later NBC reported that Afia had been arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of facilitating money transfers for terror networks.But in two press conferences held on April 1 and 2, 2003, the then Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat denied that she had been arrested.The US government also never confirmed she was in their custody till a few days back.
The June 23, 2003, issue of Newsweek International was exclusively devoted to Al Qaeda. The core of the issue was an article “Al Qaeda’s Network in America”.In this article, which has been authored by eight journalists who had access to FBI records, the only charge leveled against Dr. Afia is that “she rented a post-office box to help a former resident of Baltimore named Majid Khan (alleged Al Qaeda suspect) to help establish his US identity.However, one of her defenders says Dr.Siddiqui ’s identity was likely stolen. “Aafia was, I think, probably a pretty naive and trusting person and my guess is it would be pretty easy for somebody who wanted to steal an identity to just steal it.”
While Aafia and her children’s whereabouts remained unknown, , a former Bagram and Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg on his release wrote a book in 2005’The Enemy Combatant’ recounting his experiences.After reading this book , a British journalist, Yvonne Ridley, investigated the matter .On July 6, 2008 in a press conference she called for help for a Pakistani woman she believes has been held in isolation by the Americans in their Bagram detention centre in Afghanistan, for over four years. “I call her the ‘grey lady’ because she is almost a ghost, a spectre whose cries and screams continues to haunt those who heard her,”
There were other reports of a woman called ‘Prisoner 650′ being detained in Afghanistan’s Bagram prison and that she has been tortured to the point where she has lost her mind. Britain’s Lord Nazeer Ahmed, (of the House of Lords), asked questions in the House about the condition of Prisoner 650 who, according to him is physically tortured and continuously raped by the officers at the prison. Lord Nazeer has also submitted that Prisoner 650 has no separate toilet facilities and has to attend to her bathing and movements in full view of the other prisoners.
Dr.Aafia after 4 years in US custody
Even after this neither the American nor the Pakistani government owned upto the detention of Dr. Afia in either Bagram or Guantanamo Bay where suspected terrorists are held.
Suddenly last Thursday BBC’s Urdu service reported recieving an e-mail from Dr.Aafia’s family lawyer in the USA who states
that on Thursday an agent from the FBI came to Dr. Afia Siddiqui’s brothers house and admitted to the fact that Dr. Afia is indeed in solitary confinement within a prison in Afghanistan and is in serious medical condition.
Pakistanis attributed this admittance to the immense media pressure created when a number of human rights organizations presented evidence of a certain prisoner-of-war known as Prisoner 650 held in terrible medical condition within an American prison located in Afghanistan and who they had reason to suspect that was Dr. Afia Siddiqui.See this Urgent letter of Appeal by The Asian Human Rights Commission’s addressed to Bush, Karzai, Gilani, Farooq Naek & Rehman Malik.
Alarmed by the international pressure this is the latest US story as reported today by New York Times:
American officials said they had no knowledge of Ms. Siddiqui’s location for the past five years until July 17, when Ms. Siddiqui and a teenage boy were detained in Ghazni, Afghanistan, after local authorities became suspicious of their loitering outside the provincial governor’s compound. When they searched Ms. Siddiqui’s handbag, the Afghan police found documents describing the creation of explosives as well as excerpts from the “Anarchist’s Arsenal.” She also carried sealed bottles and glass jars filled with liquids and gels.
The day after she was detained, an American team, including two F.B.I. agents, two American soldiers and interpreters, went to the police station to talk to her. The F.B.I. has wanted her for questioning since May 2004, a Justice Department spokesman said. The complaint gave the following account of what happened next. Americans entered a room in the police station, unaware that Ms. Siddiqui was being held there, unsecured, behind a curtain. One of the soldiers, a warrant officer, sat down and placed his M-4 rifle on the floor next to the curtain.
Shortly after the meeting began, the other soldier, a captain, heard a woman yelling from the curtain. He turned to see Ms. Siddiqui pointing the warrant officer’s rifle at him. The interpreter sitting closest to Ms. Siddiqui lunged at her and pushed the rifle away as she pulled the trigger and shouted, “God is Great.” She fired at least two shots, but no one was hit. The warrant officer returned fire with his 9mm pistol, hitting Ms. Siddiqui at least once in the torso. Ms. Siddiqui struggled when officers tried to subdue her, shouting in English that she wanted to kill Americans. After she was subdued, the complaint said, she “temporarily lost consciousness.”
Ms. Siddiqui was charged Monday with one count of trying to kill American officers and employees and one count of assaulting them, the Justice Department said. If convicted, she faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each count.
And Here is one reaction from a Pakistani blog:
If you were for a moment,to believe in all the BS that comes out of America then this must be probably yet another sparkling attempt to fool the world for the umpteenth time.The new ’story’ behind Dr. Afia’s sudden sudden disappearance may have something to do with the accidental FBI revelation on Thursday is now that they have allegedly found Dr. Afia on July 17th 2008 loitering around an Afghan governors compound carrying documents for creating explosives, excerpts from the Anarchist’s Arsenal, sealed bottles filled with liquids and gels [I’m impressed that she was not carrying the bomb itself while loitering around with every possible incriminating evidence stashed in her purse]. Upon her arrest the Afghan police dutifully presented her for questioning the next day where an American military officer happened to place an M-16 next to her, she naturally went crazy, fired two shots [screaming Allah-o-Akbar {Alert Alert! Oh my gosh thats a keyword sure to land her into Gitmo}] and in the tussle got shot in the torso by the military officer acting in ’self defense’. [WOW that script must be from a page torn out of some James Bond movie.]
I don’t even have to ask anyone to read hard in between the lines – its simply out there. Just because a team of FBI team accidentally coughed up an admittance on Thursday that Dr. Afia actually lived in Afghanistan but in a horrid medical condition they needed to supply an alibi, how would she look tortured, battered and terrorized walking into a New York court house sporting a bullet wound in her hip. Yes they needed an elaborate story [yet stupid] combined with first hand testimonials to try their best to save face
It truly infuriates me that they kidnapped her on absolutely no charge held her captive for over five years and then to rub salt on our wounds try to cook up a lame ass excuse of assaulting an officer [who then is responsible for the five years of mental and physical assault on her and her children (???)] I have little words to express my anger, the anger of a nation, the anger of seeing a women brutalized and made insane simply because she was rumored to have been a key figure in Al-Qaida.
