Video and Interview with Dr. Aafia's Family
Apr 21, 2011
Mohammad Toori, PRESS TV

The family members of a Pakistani neuroscientist imprisoned in the US say that she has become ill and frail due to her conditions at the notorious Carswell prison.
The mother of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui recently talked to her daughter and says that Aafia's physical and mental health have deteriorated, a Press TV correspondent reported. Pakistan's ambassador to the US has confirmed this.

Siddiqui was sentenced last year to 86 years in prison on seven counts in a federal court in Manhattan. US officials claim she was an al-Qaeda agent, but her family says this is a cover-up.

Less than a month after sentencing, Siddiqui fired her lawyers.

Her sister Fouzia says that the US authorities have turned down their request for a new lawyer, and that Aafia's court-appointed lawyer Dawn Cardi did not consult them before filing an appeal on April 15.

“Dawn Cardi, she was the lead lawyer...Aafia rejected each and every one of them [court appointed lawyers],” Fouzia told Press TV.

“We as a family rejected them in the sense that we said we would want independent lawyers...We wanted lawyers of our choice, who are independent, who are not being paid by a government who has sold its own citizen,” she added.

Aafia's Zardari administration says they are trying their best to ensure the safe and immediate release of Siddiqui, but nothing has materialized so far.

Her release has become a national issue in Pakistan and attracting the attention of human rights groups across the globe. They say she is deprived of the rights a detainee should have according to international law.

Aafia has been named the "daughter of the nation" by Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.

New York, April 3, 2011

Last week on March 30, 2011 the US 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals (The cour that will hear any appeal in Dr. Aafia's case) issued a strongly worded letter to the government appointed lawyers claiming to represent Dr. Aafia.

The attorneys had requested an extension citing lack of time and resources to prepare an appeal given their workloads.  The court denied the extension and has demanded a submission by April 15 or the appeal will be summarily dismissed. It remains to be seen what can be prepared in 10 days that could not be done in 6 months.

(NOTE: The attorneys were fired repeatedly by Aafia but were asked to stay on the case by the Judge .  Meanwhile the lawyer requested by Aafia has not even been allowed a telephone call.)

Coincidence or a sadistic April Fools' prank on Dr Aafia's mother  - 2 years in a row

For the second year in a row, influential persons in Islamabad have chosen April 1 as the day to promise Dr. Aafia's mother a phone call from Aafia.  And for two years in a row, she has waited by the phone - but no call came.
Maybe this is just coincidence or some in Islamabad and Washington are enjoying a sadistic April Fools' prank.

(NOTE: Aafia has not spoken to a member of her family since October 2010.  She has not met with any member of her family since May, 2009.  She is not allowed to retain a lawyer of her choice.)

Is Raymond Davis a More Superior Being Than Aafia Siddiqui?
by Adnan Khalid

TECHNORATI, March 22, 2011

On February 3, 2010, a Pakistani - Aafia Siddiqui - was found guilty of two counts of attempted murder, armed assault, using and carrying a firearm, and three counts of assault on U.S. officers and employees. Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years in prison (effectively a life sentence) by the federal judge Berman in Manhattan on September 23, 2010. She is a Ph.D and an MIT graduate. She was reported as being a polite, not unusually religious, non-assertive woman by her fellows at MIT. Pakistan's government had no power and control over the U.S. in Aaafia's case and hence could do nothing to get her released.

Raymond Davis is a staff member of the U.S. consulate in Lahore. He shot dead two Pakistani men on Thursday the 27th of January 2011, in a crowded part of Lahore (Mozang Chowk.) A vehicle of the U.S. consulate rushed to Mr Davis’ ‘rescue’ ran over a third person, who also died. A murder case was registered against Raymond Davis, who was handed into police custody. Raymond Davis was released by Punjab officials on 16th March 2011 after a reported deal was negotiated with the families of the two men he was accused of murdering. Davis was scheduled to be indicted for murder charges on the same date.

Security forces picked up the victims' families last night. A payment estimated at $2 million was made to secure the release. The families are still in police custody. Davis is now at an undisclosed location, rumored to be Bagram Air Force Base in Kabul.

"Blood money" was given to the families who now have denied that they had agreed to the deal. One of the family members told the media in Pakistan; "Family members were told they were being taken to the police station to make statements. Instead, they were taken to a secret location and held in isolation and told that unless they signed a letter pardoning Davis, 'you will never see daylight'."

Senator John Kerry flew to Pakistan on February 16, 2011. He met with Punjab’s ruling duo, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and his brother Nawaz Sharif, heads of the PML, Pakistan Muslim League. Kerry announced that the release would occur in a few days, although families refused to meet with him. Rana Sanaullah the Punjab Law Minister played the lead role. Sources in Pakistan indicate that government and police officials in Punjab received millions in CIA payoffs in the deal.

My question to the respected people of the world is whether one person could be so superior to the other simply because of the geographical location in which he is born. Is luck such a great factor in determining the human rights of a person that simply being a citizen of a super power provides a person the liberty to kill. Where are the so-called champions of human rights and international law when an attempted murder gets 86 years in jail and a double murder goes unpunished. Where were the saviors of humanity who killed thousands in the name of war on terror when families were terrorized into signing an agreement for the freedom of the one who killed their sons! Is the only form of terrorism visible to the international community Islamic terrorism and doesn't any other form of violence against humanity classify as terrorism in the eyes of the intellectuals of this world? Ask yourself and be ashamed of the world that you live in because that is the least we can do!

by: Mauri Saalakhan

March 17, 2011

 IJN Press Release

February 14, 2011, New York, NY.

Early Monday morning, International Justice Network published a report regarding the highly controversial case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. Representing the Siddiqui Family in the United States, IJN has spent the past 14 months researching the circumstances surrounding the unusual arrest and custody of the Pakistani mother of three. Supported with previously unreleased evidence, IJN has uncovered direct involvement by Pakistan agencies in the disappearance of Dr. Aafia and her three young children in March 2003 -- five years before the US government claims she was first arrested in Afghanistan in July 2008.

The report, Aafia Siddiqui: Just the Facts, reveals shocking new evidence that contradicts official statements from governments of both Pakistan and the United States that Dr. Siddiqui was not detained in their custody prior to her arrest in 2008. IJN has obtained a secret audio recording of a senior Pakistani police official who admits he was personally involved in the arrest of Dr. Siddiqui and her children eight years ago. This account is corroborated by substantial documentary evidence and witness testimony, which all points to the same conclusion—that Dr. Siddiqui and her three children were initially arrested in March 2003 with the knowledge and cooperation of local authorities in Karachi, Pakistan, and subsequently interrogated by Pakistani military intelligence (ISI) as well as U.S. intelligence agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

This shameful new revelation will not only establish a stage for holding specific political actors accountable for the grave injustice done to Dr. Siddiqui and her family, but should serve as a keystone for repairing the severed diplomatic ties between Pakistan and the United States. In a letter to Interior Minister, Rehman Malik,  last week, IJN Executive Director, Tina M. Foster, urged the government of Pakistan to take immediate action to demand Dr. Siddiqui's repatriation, while the U.S. government is seeking the return of the Lahore shooter.   In it, Ms. Foster stated:

"The safety and security of all Pakistani citizens is compromised when U.S. government agents can kill civilians on Pakistani soil with impunity, while the daughter of the nation (who has never caused harm or injury to anyone) languishes in a Texas prison for a crime she didn’t commit.   Justice demands that Raymond Davis not be repatriated to the United States without securing the return of Dr. Siddiqui to Pakistan. The path is now clear.  The only question that remains is whether the government of Pakistan is willing to take it."

To access report documents, please follow the links provided below:

Aafia Siddiqui: Just the Facts [Appendix A: Certified Transcript of Secret Audio Recording]    View /   Download 51K    (Internet Explorer link)

Aafia Siddiqui: Just the Facts [Full Report]    View /   Download 134KB    (Internet Explorer link)

Aafia Siddiqui: Just the Facts [Executive Summary]   View /   Download 55K    (Internet Explorer link)

Several events were held around the globe to mark the 8th Anniversary of the kidnapping of Aafia and her children from Karachi in March 2003 by officials of the Pakistani military government.

Groups in Pakistan commemorated the begining of Dr. Aafia's 9th year in captivity.

Many messages of support were also received.  A selection is posted below:

BRUCE KENT:

Vice President of Pax Christi and an ardent supporter of the campaign for freedom and justice for Dr Aafia Siddiqui.

Dear all,

It is, in a cruel world, one of the cruellest stories I have ever heard. How can 'civilised' people  and even 'religious' people behave this way?

If we can’t do much more, at least we must not ever keep quiet.

Persistent voices do get heard. There is always hope - the Mandela release is proof of that; but how many times before it happened I thought to myself that his case was hopeless. I was wrong.

LAUREN BOOTH:

Journalist and Broadcaster, Ms. Booth is also the sister in law of former British PM, Tony Blair.

"To all those who continue to fight for Dr Aafia Siddiqui's release, I would like to add my voice to your calls for justice.

Of all the words that have been written about this terrible case, one phrase, sticks in my mind:

'The Victim has become the accused.'

From the very start of her and her family’s torment, Dr Siddiqui's injuries, her incarceration, the brutal way in which the US authorities treated her, were twisted and used as PROOF of her guilt.

In this age, where US aggression is painted as 'aid'; where drone attacks on villagers in Pakistan, are sold to a willing media as in 'our' interest, this mother's existence has been allowed to become, a living death.

The violence carried out on her, her eight year incarceration, twisted until a gullible, ill informed, public, actually see the victim as the accused.

This is the fight that must be addressed.

BARONESS SARAH LUDFORD:

Lady Ludford is the Liberal Democrat Member of the European Parliament for London

Dear friends,

Thank you for coming here today to mark the 8th anniversary of Aafia’s abduction. I’m sorry that I cannot be with you, as Liberal Democrat European Justice and Human Rights spokesperson, to add my voice to the call for justice for Aafia.

This occasion represents a great opportunity not only to raise awareness of Aafia’s situation and demonstrate our solidarity with her, but also to expose the shocking treatment by the United States of certain suspects and prisoners.

I utterly condemn the secret abduction and detention of any person and deplore the denial of the basic right to a fair trial.

As a champion of democracy, liberty and the rule of law the US must uphold these principles in its treatment of prisoners. There can be no denial of human rights for these are absolute and untouchable.

I call on the United States to stand by its obligations to international human rights law, as well as, at the very least, to allow Aafia contact with her family.

LINDSEY GERMAN:

Stop the Ware Coalition

Greetings from the Stop the War Coalition and good luck with your demonstration. The Justice for Aafia Coalition is doing a great job in keeping this case in the public eye and in trying to achieve justice for Aafia. She and her family are some of the victims of the war on terror, which the US and Britain have been waging for almost a decade. In that time millions have been killed or had their lives ruined through displacement, destruction of their homes and livelihoods, or imprisonment.

Aafia's case and her sentence are both particularly shocking. They are, however, the outcome of a war which criminalises whole communities and deems any opponents of the war as terrorists or extremists.

Recent figures for compensation payouts to Afghans for death or injury as a result of the war show the scale of destruction there. The war has spread to Pakistan, whose population is suffering drone attacks instituted by President Obama.

Now the US, Britain and France are attacking Libya in the name of humanity and helping ordinary people. All our past experience shows that it will do nothing to help people or bring peace.

The war has increased attacks on civil liberties, and has raised the level of Islamophobia in the western countries. For all these reasons, we will continue to oppose the wars and we stand in solidarity with your campaign.'

Karachi:

Fowzia Siddiqui, sister of Aafia Siddiqui, lights earthenware lamps with activists of Pasban at an event held to pay homage to victims of quake-hit Japan, in Karachi on March 22, 2011. More than 21,000 people are confirmed dead or listed as missing after a 9.0-magnitude quake struck off Japan's northeastern coast in March 11, unleashing a giant tsunami that swept away entire towns.

Aafia and Raymond

by Fowzia Siddiqui, February 2, 2011

On 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.

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)? But 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.

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 wasn’t “us”.

We let bombs go off across Punjab. But these were the Punjabis; the Taliban again, or just fanatics. It wasn’t “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”.

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 Americas 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 Aafia’s conviction, that wound is still deep and fresh. God has given us momentum. I do not know His purpose but somehow Aafia’s 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 Raymond’s 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 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.

KARACHI: March 21, 2011

Colorful Holi Festival is marked across the world.

Dr. Fauzia, sister of Aafia Siddiqui was invited as a chief guest at Hindu celebrations marking the festival of Holi.  The Hindu community members in Karachi expressed solidarity for the cause of getting Aafia's freedom.