Update on Aafia Siddiqui Story, Upcoming Trial Jan 2010

Pretty good summary of the strange case of Aafia Siddiqui, from Declan Walsh of the Guardian.  Siddiqui, former student at Brandeis and MIT in the 1990's, was picked up in Afghanistan in July 2008, and she's been in U.S. custody ever since.  But where was she between 2003 and 2008?  Walsh interviews three people who ought to know something: Aafi'a sister Fowzia, her ex-husband Amjad Khan and her uncle Shams ul-Hassan Faruqi.  According to Siddiqui's sister and British journalist/radical Muslim Yvonne Ridley, Aafia was kept at the Bagram detention center.  Ridley and other Islamist organizations (Caged Prisoners) are getting lots of mileage with their utterly unsubstantiated story that Aafia was the "Grey Lady of Bagram,"  keeping other prisoners awake with her cries.  The U.S. begs to differ with Ridley's story:

"...every major security agency of the US government – army, FBI, CIA – denies having held her. Last year the US ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson, went even further. She stated that Siddiqui was not in US custody 'at any time' prior to July 2008."

Aafia's ex-husband tells a different story:

"The truth of the matter, he (Khan) said, was that Siddiqui had never been sent to Bagram. Instead she spent the five years on the run, living clandestinely with her three children, under the watchful eye of Pakistani intelligence. He told me they shifted between Quetta in Baluchistan province, Iran and the Karachi house I had visited earlier that day."

"...Khan's explanation is bolstered by the one person who claims to have met the missing neuroscientist between 2003 and 2008 – her uncle, Shams ul-Hassan Faruqi."

I've read two versions of what happened to Aafia by her uncle Faruqi, and they don't quite match up either.  This mystery doesn't seem to clear up, it only becomes murkier. 

Aafia seems to have her wits about her and is in fact quite feisty these days.  She is apparently not fond of Jewish people:

"During a typically stormy hearing last Thursday, Siddiqui interrupted the judge, rebuked her own lawyers and made strident appeals to the packed courthouse. 'I am boycotting this trial,' she declared. I am innocent of all the charges and I can prove it, but I will not do it in this court.' Previously she had tried to fire her lawyers due to their Jewish background (she once wrote to the court that Jews are 'cruel, ungrateful, back-stabbing' people) and demanded to speak with President Obama for the purpose of 'making peace' with the Taliban. This time, though, she was ejected from the courtroom for obstruction. 'Take me out. I'm not coming back,' she said defiantly."

Aafia Siddiqi's trial for attempted murder of a U.S. soldier in an Afghan police station is slated to start in Janaury 2010 in New York.  Much remains mysterious in this case:

"And so the big questions may not be probed: whether the ISI or CIA abducted Siddiqui in 2003, what she did afterwards, and where her two missing children are now. In fact the framing of the charges raises a new question: if Siddiqui was such a dangerous terrorist five years ago, why is she not being charged as one now?"

Very informative article, read the whole thing!

Comments

[Danial]

All these acusation are false and Dr Afia Sidduqui is purely inncoent. She was kidnapped by Pakistani agency in 2003 while her way to Airposr as she had flight to Rawalphindi with her three children but on the way she was kidnapped and never reached Airport. The Pakistani agencies are involved with American and they both planned and bribed the pakistanis. Dr Afia was a neuroscientist and she saw someting very intolerable which wanted to report out but before she could do they kidnapped her. she wanted to raise voice against traitors, back stabber and so called conspirators. She was passed to ameriacns taritors by pakistani agnencies in 2003. And the period 2003-2008 she;s been going through alot.
Her only sin was that she is Muslim and she was backstabbed by own people. Americans government talk about human rights but when it comes to Afia Siddqui they forget everything because she is a muslim. Her family was warned by American FBI not disclose any information to the media. She facing alot of torture in the jail but no one is coming forward to help her out.I pray to GOD that all these americans face a devistating period because of them today there a lot of terrorism. Jews carried out the 9/11 attack and blamed on talibans. American giverments are animals and devilsh people worser then henry.

[peace]

Does Danial think the following statement is really helpful in any way?:

"I pray to GOD that all these americans face a devistating period because of them today there a lot of terrorism. Jews carried out the 9/11 attack and blamed on talibans. American giverments are animals and devilsh people worser then henry."

Now contrast this with the following statement:

"All these acusation are false and Dr Afia Sidduqui is purely inncoent."

Where is Danial's proof? Does evidence not count when he makes such discriminatory claims?

One might ask how does Danial know this? Is he familiar with the burden of proof? He seems to think that muslims are innocent by default whereas non-muslims are terrorists.

Stop making this into a alleged muslim versus non-muslim rant.

The fact as we the public know it:

1) Affia's case is strange and there are far too many unanswered questions

2) She is charged with assaulting US military/agents and NOT terrorism

3) Her absence of 5 years is strange

4) Add to that her two missing kids

5) IF she is the victim of Bagram prison, then she was torturred and abuse without doubt as the repute of that place is anything but good

Danial should sit down, take a deep breath and acquaint himself with Human Rights, which Pakistan has a terrible and even worse record of than most western or non-muslim countries.

Perhaps he can explain the merciless persecution of women under Hudood Ordinance where a rape victim is equated to a fornicator/adulteress and put in jail, where women are raped daily and the police turns the blind eye (Dr, Shazia, Mukhtar Mai, Sonia Naz and many many more), the horrible and inhumane persecution and force conversion of Christian Pakistanis and rapes of their girls, burning of churches, acid attacks on women, karo kari (honour killings), the widespread corruption which allows for innocent Pakistani men and women to be imprisoned and raped and tortured beyond rcognition, the persecution of Ahmadiya muslims and so on.

When he can account for this and explain how that fits into his idea of human rights, then we can talk about the constant blaming the jews, americans and west for every problem in the muslim world. Until then it is just empty and hollow conspiracy theories.

But overall I agree with Miss Kelly on the murkiness of this case.

Today the trial starts in New York. Let us hope the truth will come forward and justice prevail.

My sympathies with Aafia.

If anybody is to blame it is the Pakistani and Afhgan authorites who handed her over. Nobody else.

I wonder if Danial would cry foul if this was an hindu/american/british/jewish person caught, tortured and accused by Pakistanis and treated like this.

I doubt it.