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Newsletter: Humiliation: "Routine" Strip Searches and Abuse at Dr. Aafia's Detention Center |
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Humiliation: "Routine" Strip Searches and Abuse at Dr. Aafia's Detention Center
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Free Dr. Aafia
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Greetings!
Special Edition: Imagine Dealing with Solitary Confinement, Strip Searches with every visitor (including legal counsel) and being confined in a facility with a record of prisoner abuse during Ramadan!
This is the family of Dr. Aafia's official source for news, updates, action alerts and events related to Dr. Aafia Siddiqui's plight and court case.
Please FORWARD this email with your friends and family and encourage them to subscribe. We protect your privacy and your time, so we will not share our email list with anyone nor will we spam you.
May God bless you!
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IMAGINE if to meet your legal counsel, to take a phone call or go to a court hearing, you were required to undergo a strip search...
There has been some discussion recently about Dr. Aafia's hesitation in meeting with lawyers and others. Many do not know that this is due to the horrific strip searches she is made to endure.
Unfortunately, there is a lack of understanding about how severe the strip searches can be.
Fact is that all "strip searches" are not the same.
What most people think of a strip search involves visual check by a law enforcement officer of the same gender as the person being searched.
NOT NECESSARILY TRUE.
Dr Aafia has to go through invasive full cavity searches conducted in a forced restrained situation and sometimes videotaped. This happens even if she has to make a phone call to a lawyer!
To get a sense of what one of these searches can be like, please see the following videos (linked below) of an ACTUAL STRIP SEARCH released by a brave woman who wanted the world to see the FACTS as compared to a training video on how to "properly" conduct a "visual search."
The worst parts of the abused women were deleted as the video was aired on public TV. (Note this is a search of a regular, American citizen accused of a minor crime.)
We pray that Dr. Aafia, a Muslim woman accused of trying to harm US servicemen is not treated as such and we pray that she is RESPECTED and the "routine" strip searches will soon end.
PLEASE WATCH and you will understand much...
(One British viewer referred to the searches as nothing short of RAPE)
Imagine the toll this would take on a person trying to defend themselves in the very same legal system that subjects her to these routine searches.
Disclaimer: MDC does not release videotapes of its searches so the publicly posted videos are the most available references. Contrast actual forced search with the official guidelines which can be humiliating enough. WARNING GRAPHIC VIDEO:
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Conditions of Confinement:
Richard Berman, the judge in Dr. Aafia's case makes repeated assertions about the "presumption of innocence." Each time he does this, one has to question just how this concept is actually applied to Dr. Aafia's case.
Dr. Aafia's Prison Cell:
This is what a cell in the SHU looks like and where Dr Aafia spends all her days. You decide how this is for a woman exposed with zero privacy even to go to the toilet. She is "observed" every 20 minutes by a guard (male or female).
A few simple questions, if she is presumed innocent:
- Why is she denied a bail hearing?
- Why is she treated worse than CONVICTED felons?
- Why is she is held in maximum security, solitary confinement at least 23 hours a day? Especially when she has not been formally charged with anything requiring such treatment?
- Why she cannot access advice from anyone she trusts? Visitation from family is restricted and she is allowed only ONE 15 minute call every 30 days. (the only exception being an order from the judge)
- Why she cannot meet or talk with advisors or lawyers without being forcibly strip searched EVERY TIME?
- Why is she is forced to choose between her right to privacy (avoiding invasive strip searches by strangers) and her right to full representation (ability to meet with trusted advisors, lawyers, etc. in a secure environment).
Her treatment clearly reflects the assertion of a "presumption of Guilt."
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DOCUMENTED ABUSE at MDC Brooklyn where Dr. Aafia is held...
The stories sound familiar: Muslim prisoners beaten and sexually humiliated by American guards. But it happened in Brooklyn, not Baghdad.... Salon.com: The prisoner-abuse scandal at home "... A former MDC lieutenant, who was one of the lieutenants in charge of escorting the detainees to and from the ADMAX SHU (hereinafter "Lieutenant 1"), corroborated detainees' allegations of slamming. He stated that before the MDC began videotaping all detainee movements, which was on or about October 5, 2001, almost all of the detainees were slammed against walls, particularly in the sally port. He also stated he witnessed staff members "bounce" detainees against the wall. Lieutenant 1 explained that "slamming" a detainee against the wall was when officers shoved the detainee into the wall and held him there, and "bouncing" a detainee off the wall was when officers shoved the detainee into the wall and then quickly pulled him back. Lieutenant 1 said "pressing" a detainee against the wall was when officers used physical force to keep a detainee's chest against the wall. ..."
Supplemental Report on September 11 Detainees' Allegations of Abuse at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York: Full report here.
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Stand for humane treatment and stand against injustice! Standing for Dr. Aafia brings light to all missing persons, victims of extraordinary rendition and people held in secret prisons. It sends the message that all human beings, especially - our sisters - Muslim women have rights!
God Bless,
The Free Dr. Aafia Campaign |
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