Worldwide Protests on Aafia Siddiqui Day, March 28, 2010

Posted on March 29, 2010
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by Andy Worthington

March 28th was the seventh anniversary of the day that Pakistani neuroscientist Dr. Aafia Siddiqui and her three young children were reportedly abducted in Karachi, leading to Aafia’s disappearance for over five years — when she was apparently held in secret prisoners and subjected to appalling abuse — before she resurfaced in Afghanistan and supposedly attempted to shoot a number of US soldiers.

For this alleged crime, she was flown to the United States, put on trial, and found guilty, in a federal court in New York, on February 3, 2010, on “charges related to the attempted murder and assault of US nationals and US officers and employees in Afghanistan.”

Numerous commentators have denounced the trial as a sham, and today, protestors around the world called for justice for Aafia Siddiqui. Further details can be found on the website of the Justice for Aafia Coalition, including a campaign pack (PDF), which contains a detailed report on the background to the story, and contact details for letters/emails to Aafia, the US and Pakistani governments and the UN.

 
Amongst the many outstanding questions regarding the case of Aafia Siddiqui are the following:
  • Was she indeed kidnapped with her three children in Karachi on March 28, 2003, and subsequently rendered to a secret prison, where she was raped and tortured for five years? Binyam Mohamed, the British resident who was released from Guantánamo in February 2009, has stated that he saw Aafia Siddiqui in Bagram, and other former prisoners have spoken about “The Grey Lady of Bagram,” Prisoner 650, who they believed was Aafia.
  • Where are her children?
  • If Aafia Siddiqui was indeed held in secret US custody for over five years, was the story of the attempted shooting of the US soldiers in July 2008 a cynical set-up, designed to ensure that she could be transferred to the US and tried, convicted and imprisoned without the true story coming to light?
I urge anyone concerned with the stories of “ghost prisoners” detained in secret prisons in the “War on Terror” to study Aafia Siddiqui’s story closely. Yvonne Ridley has focused on her case for many years, and other sources include a detailed report in Harper’s Magazine by Petra Bartosiewicz last November, another in the Guardian by Declan Walsh, and a recent report by Robert Fisk in the Independent, which I reproduce below.
 
I confess that, although I have been aware of her case for many years, I have never found the time to investigate it fully, as it seemed to me that it was a research project that could take months, if not years. However, it has always troubled me that her case could be the most distressing of all the many disturbing stories of brutality, injustice and false confessions in the “War on Terror,” and the failure of anyone to account for the whereabouts of two of her children has always struck me as particularly despicable.
 
Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK).
 

1 thought on “Worldwide Protests on Aafia Siddiqui Day, March 28, 2010”

  1. Thank you Andy for exposing what appears to be an act of Gestapo terror! Please, please continue to use your legitimacy on this woman’s behalf.

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