The power you gave them to torture me, rape me and every time allow them to search me naked. I’m dead. I was dead since the very first time I was raped, searched naked, each and every time you need to present me in court – I’m searched naked… Leave me alone or send me back to my country Pakistan.’ – Dr. Aafia Siddiqui
Aafia is a Pakistani national with degrees from MIT and a doctorate in neurocognitive science from Brandeis. Despite false media reports, she’s not a microbiologist, geneticist or neurologist. Nor did her training provide expertise for WMD terrorism. As her lawyer, Elaine Whitfeld Sharp, explains:
The prosecution claimed “that Aafia was involved in biochemical warfare. She wasn’t taking brain cells and testing how they reacted to gases. But there’s all this news in the media about the changing face of Al Qaeda, the neurobiology scare, and now we’ve got this MIT graduate with a Brandeis Ph.D. who’s cooking up all these viruses.”
Boston Magazine writer Katherine Ozment explained what Aafia “was actually cooking up” – the simple concept that people learn by imitation. To study it, “she devised a computer program and used adult volunteers, who came to her office and watched various objects move randomly across the screen, then reproduced what they recalled. The point was to see how well they retained the information having seen in on the screen.”
Brandeis professor of cognitive science Paul DiZio laughed about how this could apply to terrorism. “I can’t see how it can be applied to anything. It’s not applied work. It didn’t have a medical aspect to it. And, as a computer expert, she was competent. But you know, calling her a mastermind or something (is ludicrous) – I never saw any evidence.”
She and her husband (a medical resident at the time at Brigham and Women’s Hospital) used their apartment for a 1999 nonprofit organization they began called the Institute of Islamic Research and Teaching. It had nothing to do with terrorism. According to the neighborhood Mosque’s Imam, Abdullah Faruuq: “What I know of (Aafia) is that she was living here in America, and her organization was for sharing Islamic information with the American people.”
Faruuq was impressed with her dedication. “Aafia was an American girl and a good sister.” She also wanted her husband to use his medical skills to help the less fortunate. Despite her devout faith, “there was nothing radical about Siddiqui. She just seemed like a very kind person.”
She’s also a mother of three, and a victim of extreme viciousness in detention. According to her mother, Ismet, she “left the family home in Gulshan-e-lqbal in a taxi on March 30 to catch a flight for Rawalpindi, but never reached the airport.” Inside sources claim she was picked up by intelligence agents en route, and initial reports suggest then handed over to the FBI.
She was missing for over a year when the agency posted her photographs on its web site. Shortly afterward, a story was leaked about her involvement in the 2001 Liberian diamond trade with her as an Al Qaeda operative. The family’s attorney, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, called the allegation a blessing in disguise because it placed Aafia in Liberia at a specific time when she can prove she was in Boston that week.
Aafia’s mother says that only days after her daughter’s disappearance a man on motorcycle came to her family home and warned her to say nothing about what happened if she wanted to see Aafia and her grandchildren again. She hasn’t since, and according to the Pakistani Urdu press, the family was picked up by local authorities and taken into custody. A government interior ministry spokesman and two unnamed US officials confirmed the report in the press. They then retracted their statements, but local Chicago NBC news (based on a Press Trust of India account) reported that Aafia was being interrogated by US intelligence officials.
At the time, the FBI website stated: “Although the FBI has no information indicating this individual is connected to specific terrorist activities, the FBI would like to locate and question this individual.” The agency knew full well what happened – that Aafia was in secret detention, that her horrific ordeal had begun, and that they and other US authorities were involved.
A Brief Timeline of Aafia’s Case
– March 18, 2003: the FBI issues an alert requesting information about Aafia;
– March 29: UPI reports that the FBI believes Aafia may be an Al Qaeda “fixer,” transferring money to support “terrorist” operations;
– March 30: Aafia disappears en route to the airport for a flight to Rawalpindi;
– April 3: CNN reports that Al Qaeda figure Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (arrested March 1) mentioned Aafia during interrogation; Pakistani authorities deny any knowledge of her whereabouts;
– April 4: the FBI denies that it captured and is detaining Aafia;
– May 26: John Ashcroft and FBI director Robert Mueller cite reports that Al Queda plans an attack on the US in the summer or fall; Aafia is named as an Al Qaeda “operative and facilitator” and is one of seven Al Qaeda members being sought;
– May 28, 2004: Pakistan’s Interior Ministry confirms that Aafia was turned over to US authorities in 2003 after it was unable to establish any links she may have had with Al Qaeda;
– A 2006 Amnesty International report includes Aafia as one of many of the “disappeared” in the “war on terror;”
– A 2007 Ghost Prisoner Human Rights Watch report said that Aafia “may have once been held” in secret CIA detention;
– A February 2008 Asian Human Rights Commission report said Aafia was brought to Karachi and severely tortured to secure her compliance as a government witness against Khalid Shiekh Mohammed;
– July 7, 2008: UK journalist Yvonne Ridley identifies Aafia as “Prisoner 650? at the US Bagram, Afghanistan torture-prison;
– July 11: US Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green denies that any women are being held at Bagram;
– July 31: the FBI tells Aafia’s brother that she’s in US custody;
– August 4: a DOJ press release says that Afghanistan National Police arrested Aafia in Ghazni on July 17 and that she was wounded the next day while trying to shoot US Army personnel;
– August 6: US Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis orders Aafia be held without bail; her court-appointed lawyer, Elizabeth Fink, says charges against her are “absurd;” a bail hearing was set for August 11 and another for August 18 to determine if she should be tried;
– August 12: the Washington Pakistani embassy formally requests that Aafia be repatriated to Pakistan;
– August 13: the US military in Afghanistan denies it ever held Aafia in detention and that an unnamed female prisoner was someone else;
– September 12: according to a report in MIT’s The Tech, court documents released today indicate that Aafia “was diagnosed with chronic depressive type psychosis;”
– September 23: Judge Richard Berman enters a “not guilty” plea on behalf of Aafia; she refuses to come to court because doing so requires she be strip-searched; he sets December 17 as the next hearing date to determine her fitness to stand trial; he also sets March 9, 2009 as a tentative trial date;
– September 29: World Net Daily reports that for the “first time since 9/11, counterterrorism field agents have been authorized to spy on young Muslim men and women – including American citizens – who have traveled to Pakistan without any specific evidence (suggesting) wrongdoing;”
– October 2: Aafia is moved to the Carswell Federal Medical Center, Fort Worth, TX for psychiatric evaluation; in vain, her lawyer pleaded that she not be sent because she urgently needs medical treatment;
– October 6: Pakistani senators Mushahid Hussain Syed, Sadia Abbasi Mehmood, and SM Zafar met with Aafia; Faqir Saeed of the Pakistani embassy as well; she tells them of her ordeal – that she was abducted in 2003, given an injection, found herself in a cell, and was forced to sign papers and confess to things she didn’t do; her children’s lives were threatened and she was abused grievously;
– November 17: Judge Richard Berman indicates that a psychiatric evaluation indicates that Aafia is “not competent to proceed as a result of her mental disease, which renders her unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against her;”
– December 17: the next scheduled date (in New York District Court) to determine if Aafia is fit to stand trial;
– March 9, 2009: the tentative date for Aafia’s trial to begin.
The US Bagram, Afghanistan Torture-Prison
After her abduction, Aafia disappeared into Bagram hell and was known only as “Prisoner 650.” Then later, by released prisoners, as the “Gray Lady of Bagram” because of her screams they heard for years.
http://www.draafia.org
http://www.mykhilafah.com/
I salute her courage,patience and her personality
ReplyDeleteAllahuakbar...
ReplyDelete