Update - Aafia Siddiqi

I have followed the story of Aafia Siddiqi since I first read of her horrific ordeal last year. And her torture continues, in a more restrained way under the eye of media and the Pakistan government, as she remains in US custody. Keeping her case in the public eye is her only hope. Other stories on my blog can be found here.

I note here that a few of the more recent stories on her case are not accessible as the www.draafia.org site in no longer accessible (must be link decay?). However the following three stories are up to date. Two of her children are still missing and a third is severely disturbed. I would appreciate any info anyone has on this.

One of interrogators was Indian at Bagram: Aafia

Pakistani scientist detained in US told Senate body
she was arrested from Pakistan and later shifted to Bagram

By Muhammad Bilal
Source
ISLAMABAD: Dr Aafia Siddiqi — a Pakistani national on trial in the United States – has alleged that one of the interrogators at the Bagram airbase was an Indian, according to a report by the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Dr Aafia has narrated her entire story to a delegation of the committee that went to see her, telling them how she was arrested from Pakistan and later shifted to Bagram.

The delegation – headed by Mushahid Hussain Syed – visited the US in October last year and held a meeting with the detained Pakistani scientist.

The report presented to a joint meeting of the Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights and Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs here on Thursday says that Aafia told the senators that she was travelling in a taxi to her maternal uncle’s house when she was arrested, and she later found that she had been taken to Afghanistan.

She did not know where she was taken, as she had problem recollecting and reconciling dates and places.

The report says in Bagram, Aafia was ‘tortured’, but the Afghans did not ‘humiliate’ her. Her three children – two sons and a daughter – were taken away from her, and she was told her children would be returned only if she confessed to meeting certain people. She, however, did not disclose the names of the people in question. She feared that this forced confession could go against her in Pakistan. She also feared that her third child, named Suleman, may have been killed.

Dr Aafia alleged that one of the interrogators in Bagram was an Indian – who was her contemporary at MIT and was interested in her research work. She was repeatedly asked to do similar research for the ‘interrogator countries’. Her interrogators in Afghanistan spoke in American accent and Hindi. Dr Aafia also did not disclose the questions asked by the interrogators.

Referring to the incident which became a basis for the institution of a case against her in the US, she said that at the detention centre, she got up and heard a US soldier shouting ‘she is loose’ – and a US captain fired at her, injuring her abdomen.

She fell to the ground and when she regained consciousness, she heard one of the soldiers say ‘we could lose our jobs’. In the US court, she is charged with pulling a gun at a uniformed officer. Aafia denies that charge. The prosecutors deny that she was fired at, and to conceal the facts “a surgery was performed on me”.

Nisar urges charge sheet against US
for making objectionable video of Aafia

Source
ISLAMABAD: Chairman Senate’s Standing Committee for Defence Nisar Memon has urged to summon US ambassador in the session and present a charge sheet against USA for an making objectionable video of Dr Aafia in New York jail. More here.

Senate bodies slam Aafia’s detention,
Gaza assault

Staff Report
Source
ISLAMABAD: A joint meeting of the Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights and Foreign Relations Committee passed two unanimous resolutions condemning Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui’s detention in the US and Israeli aggression against Palestinian civilians.

Aafia Siddiqui - Again and again and again...

And again if need be....until her plight is known by all and the truth is revealed. There are moments when I think of the unnamed multitudes of people, unjustly and unlawfully detained, rotting away in some hell hole, under the power of not jailkeepers, but monsters of the US government and their mercenary counterparts. I can do nothing for these poor souls; except be a witness to their existence.

The case of Aafia Siddiqui, however, epitomises the countless who cannot be found or helped. To the extent of this blog, I can keep republishing her story until, single reader by single reader, her plight brings about more awareness and concern. Other postings on Aafia can be found by searching 'aafia' on this blog.

This particular article is long and in depth and I greatly appreciate the efforts of the author. At present, Aafia still rots in a US detention center, accused of 'terrorism' (a convenient label for any random activity the USA deems against its federal authority). For those who wish to know, the article linked below is comprehensive and well written.

For those readers who are familiar with this case, an update can be found here.US court extends Aafia’s sanity probe

The Abduction, Secret Detention, Torture, and Repeated Raping of Aafia Siddiqui

by Stephen Lendman

December 15, 2008

I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.

Post-9/11, the "war on terror" has been a jihad against Islam, the colonizers v. the colonized, or what Edward Said called "the familiar (America, Europe, us) and the strange (the Orient, East, them)." Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is one of its most tragic, aggrieved, and ravaged victims. Her ordeal continues horrifically.

Boston Magazine's Katherine Oxment asked: "Who's afraid of Aafia Siddiqui? She went to MIT and Brandeis, married a (physician, lived in Boston), cared for her children....raised money for charities....did other volunteer work, hosted play groups in her apartment, (is) deeply religious....distribute(d) Korans to inmates in area prisons," and did nothing out of the ordinary. (She) "was a normal woman living a normal American life. Until the FBI called her a terrorist....a high-profile Al Qaeda operative," but we've seen these charges before, and each time they were bogus. They're egregiously so against Aafia - a woman guilty only of being Muslim at the wrong time in America or elsewhere if you're on Washington's target list.

Against her and others, no evidence exists so prosecutors invent it. Most (or key parts) is kept classified, unavailable to the defense, and trials are judicial equivalents of circuses. Witnesses are enlisted, pressured, coerced, and/or bought off to cooperate. Proceedings are carefully orchestrated. Due process is effectively denied, and juries are intimidated to convict the innocent for political advantage.

The dominant media cooperate. Using information from Washington Post writer, Douglas Farah, and other sources, writer Lindsey Worth of FMS, Inc. referred to "the mysterious Aafia Siddiqui....allegedly Al Qaeda's only female leader" in connecting her to "the Al Queda diamond operation" in West Africa.

The Times Online calls Aafia "Al-Qaeda woman," and for ABC News she's "Mata Hari" in a lengthy report featuring unsubstantiated charges against her, including:
-- possessing detailed radiological, chemical and biological information, including possessing a liter of cyanide and instructions for a "dirty bomb;"
-- more documents for a mass casualty attack;
-- a list of New York targets, including the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, Empire State Building, Wall Street, and the animal disease center on Plum Island;
-- terrorist recruiting;
-- possessing excerpts from "The Anarchist's Arsenal;"
-- "documents detailing US military assets;"
-- methods of attack by reconnaissance drones, underwater bombs and gliders; and
-- a thumb (or flash) drive packed with emails detailing "specific cells" and planned attacks to carry out.

According to the FBI, she is, or was when captured, a potential "treasure trove" of information on terrorist supporters, sympathizers or sleepers in America and overseas. CIA officer John Kiriakou said she's "the most significant capture in five years," and an unnamed counterterrorism official called her "a very dangerous person, no doubt about it."

For Kiriakou, she's a "radical" involved in planning "a wide variety of different operations (perhaps with WMDs)," including a "possible attempt on the life of the President." Unnamed sources from three federal agencies accused her of an "ill conceived" and perhaps amateurish plot to "kill all living US presidents," including Jimmy Carter by poisoning.
Read the entire article at

www.opednews.com