After Gitmo, Bagram Must Gofrom Khaleej Times
Oct 22, 2009
The US Senate has given the go ahead to President Barack Obama's decision to close the infamous military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. ....
.... More than 600 people picked up randomly from around the world, especially from Afghanistan and Pakistan, after the US invasion of Afghanistan had been lodged at the prison camp in Cuba for years in despicable conditions - without a trial and without giving them access to their families. In fact, even today little information is available about those held at the Bay and their crimes. ...
...While shutting down the Guantanamo Bay, Obama must not forget about the other gulag that the US has been operating in Afghanistan. According to human rights groups, the Bagram airbase prison is even worse than Gitmo because of its hellish conditions and torture of detainees. ...
... One case in point is that of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who mysteriously disappeared in Islamabad to resurface in the US custody last year - after five years. The US-trained neuroscientist is said to have been kept at Bagram and tortured for years even as her family looked for her everywhere.
Full article
hereNOTE: The article references that Dr Aafia disappeared from Islamabad. She disappeared from Karachi on her way to Islamabad.
---
Disappeared Pakistani woman facing trial in New YorkBy Larry Johnson
From Seattle Post Globe
Oct 22, 2009
From former P-I foreign editor Larry Johnson's blog: Looking for Trouble. On Monday, Nov. 2, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman who studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University, is scheduled to go on trial in New York for allegedly trying to kill FBI agents in Afghanistan....
..... A report in the Pakistani press said that Siddiqui and her kids, then 7, 5, and 6 months old, had been seen being detained by Pakistani authorities. Days later, a spokesman for Pakistan's interior ministry and two unnamed U.S. officials confirmed that she was in custody and being interrogated. Several days later, however, Pakistani and American officials apparently changed their minds, saying it was unlikely she was being held...
.... The treatment and fate of Siddiqui's children, who are all U.S. citizens, is one of many troubling aspects of this case. The oldest, 11-year-old Ahmed, who had been detained with his mother in Afghanistan, was recently released from Afghan custody into his aunt's care. Siddiqui has said that her younger son died in custody; her 5-year-old daughter remains unaccounted for.
Interestingly enough, on July 7, 2008, only about two weeks before Siddiqui's arrest, Yvonne Ridley, a British journalist and patron of Cage Prisoners, a human rights organization, had sparked an uproar by calling a press conference in Islamabad to demand that the United States hand over an unidentified female prisoner being held at the U.S.-run Bagram prison in Afghanistan.
Full story
here Notes: 1. The Date of the trial mentioned in the Article (Nov 2) has been changed by Judge Berman at the request of the prosecution. The new date is Jan 19, 2010.
2. Two of Dr. Aafia's children are still missing: Maryam, now aged 10 and a US citizen by birth and Suleman, now aged 7 and a Pakistani citizen.
Newsletter Archive 
