Archive for October, 2012

Stand By Malala

Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Our Heroes on October 17th, 2012

Dear friends,

Fourteen-year-old Malala was shot by the Taliban for supporting girls’ education. We can help make her dream come true by calling on her government to roll out funding to encourage all Pakistani families to send their girls to school. Click below to give girls’ education a fighting chance:

Malala has dedicated her childhood to championing education for girls like her in Pakistan. As she lies in a hospital bed, a tragic victim of Taliban gunmen, let’s help make her dream come true.

One part of Pakistan has already started a successful programme of paying families which send their girls to school regularly. But in Malala’s province the government is dragging its feet. Senior politicians have offered Malala help, and if we act now we can get them to commit to rolling this out nationwide.

Before the media spotlight moves on, let’s raise our voices to demand that the government announces funding for all Pakistani girls who attend school. In days the UN Education Envoy will meet Pakistan’s President Zardari and he says hand delivering 1 million signatures will strengthen his case. Sign and forward this email, and let’s help make Malala’s dream come true:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/malalahopenew/?bEkwqdb&v=18774

North-west Pakistan has been in the grip of the Taliban since 2007 when they systematically started burning and destroying girls’ schools. The Taliban destroyed 401 schools in Swat between 2001 and 2009 — 70% of them were girls’ schools. Malala drew the world’s attention to the Taliban’s reign of terror, when she started writing a blog in Urdu for the BBC. Her writing is a crucial record of the devastating consequences of extremism on the lives of ordinary Pakistanis.

Pakistan’s constitution says girls should be educated alongside boys, and the government has the resources to make it happen. But politicians have ignored that for years, influenced by extremist religious groups, and now, only 29% of girls attend secondary school. Study after study has shown the positive impact on personal and national income when girls are educated.

Let’s turn this shock and horror at the Taliban’s attack on a young girl into a wave of international pressure that forces Pakistan to address girls’ education. Click below to stand with Malala and support a massive girls’ education campaign in Pakistan, backed by resources, security, and most importantly, the will to fight the extremists who tear down Pakistan:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/malalahopenew/?bEkwqdb&v=18774

Let’s come together and stand in solidarity with a brave, young activist, who is showing the world how one little schoolgirl can stand up to armed and dangerous extremists.

With hope and determination,

Emma, Alaphia, Alex, Ricken, Ari, Michelle, Wissam, Rewan and the rest of the Avaaz team

SOURCES

Pakistan girl shot over activism in Swat Valley, claims Taliban (The Guardian):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/09/pakistan-girl-shot-activism-swat-taliban

Malala Yousafzai: Pakistan bullet surgery ‘successful’ (BBC):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19893309

Pakistan: The schoolgirl the Taliban tried to kill (The Daily Beast):
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/09/pakistan-the-schoolgirl-the-taliban-tried-to-kill.html

Pakistan’s army is in the mood for a change (FT, Ahmed Rashid):
http://blogs.ft.com/the-a-list/2012/08/15/pakistan-army-is-in-the-mood-for-a-change-of-tack/

Pakistan rebuilds its education network after Taliban are driven out of Swat (The Guardian):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/jun/26/pakistan-education-swat-valley-taliban

Lack of education is adversely affecting girls (Pakistan Today):
http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2012/04/28/comment/editors-mail/lack-of-education-is-adversely-affecting-girls/

Why Gender Equality in Basic Education in Pakistan? (UNESCO):
http://unesco.org.pk/education/documents/publications/Why%20Gender%20Equality%20in%20Basic%20Education%20in%20Pakistan.pdf

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Obama’s Policies Making Situation Worse in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Foreign Policy on October 17th, 2012

Former CIA station chief in Kabul and author of The Future of Political Islam

For all the talk of “smart power,” President Obama is pressing down the same path of failure in Pakistan marked out by George Bush. The realities suggest need for drastic revision of U.S. strategic thinking.

— Military force will not win the day in either Afghanistan or Pakistan; crises have only grown worse under the U.S. military footprint.

— The Taliban represent zealous and largely ignorant mountain Islamists. They are also all ethnic Pashtuns. Most Pashtuns see the Taliban — like them or not — as the primary vehicle for restoration of Pashtun power in Afghanistan, lost in 2001. Pashtuns are also among the most fiercely nationalist, tribalized and xenophobic peoples of the world, united only against the foreign invader. In the end, the Taliban are probably more Pashtun than they are Islamist.

— It is a fantasy to think of ever sealing the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The “Durand Line” is an arbitrary imperial line drawn through Pashtun tribes on both sides of the border. And there are twice as many Pashtuns in Pakistan as there are in Afghanistan. The struggle of 13 million Afghan Pashtuns has already inflamed Pakistan’s 28 million Pashtuns.

— India is the primary geopolitical threat to Pakistan, not Afghanistan. Pakistan must therefore always maintain Afghanistan as a friendly state. India furthermore is intent upon gaining a serious foothold in Afghanistan — in the intelligence, economic and political arenas — that chills Islamabad.

— Pakistan will therefore never rupture ties or abandon the Pashtuns, in either country, whether radical Islamist or not. Pakistan can never afford to have Pashtuns hostile to Islamabad in control of Kabul, or at home.

— Occupation everywhere creates hatred, as the U.S. is learning. Yet Pashtuns remarkably have not been part of the jihadi movement at the international level, although many are indeed quick to ally themselves at home with al-Qaida against the U.S. military.

— The U.S. had every reason to strike back at the al-Qaida presence in Afghanistan after the outrage of 9/11. The Taliban were furthermore poster children for an incompetent and harsh regime. But the Taliban retreated from, rather than lost, the war in 2001, in order to fight another day. Indeed, one can debate whether it might have been possible — with sustained pressure from Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and almost all other Muslim countries that viewed the Taliban as primitives — to force the Taliban to yield up al-Qaida over time without war. That debate is in any case now moot. But the consequences of that war are baleful, debilitating and still spreading.

— The situation in Pakistan has gone from bad to worse as a direct consequence of the U.S. war raging on the Afghan border. U.S. policy has now carried the Afghan war over the border into Pakistan with its incursions, drone bombings and assassinations — the classic response to a failure to deal with insurgency in one country. Remember the invasion of Cambodia to save Vietnam?

— The deeply entrenched Islamic and tribal character of Pashtun rule in the Northwest Frontier Province in Pakistan will not be transformed by invasion or war. The task requires probably several generations to start to change the deeply embedded social and psychological character of the area. War induces visceral and atavistic response.

— Pakistan is indeed now beginning to crack under the relentless pressure directly exerted by the U.S. Anti-American impulses in Pakistan are at high pitch, strengthening Islamic radicalism and forcing reluctant acquiescence to it even by non-Islamists.

Only the withdrawal of American and NATO boots on the ground will begin to allow the process of near-frantic emotions to subside within Pakistan, and for the region to start to cool down. Pakistan is experienced in governance and is well able to deal with its own Islamists and tribalists under normal circumstances; until recently, Pakistani Islamists had one of the lowest rates of electoral success in the Muslim world.

But U.S. policies have now driven local nationalism, xenophobia and Islamism to combined fever pitch. As Washington demands that Pakistan redeem failed American policies in Afghanistan, Islamabad can no longer manage its domestic crisis.

The Pakistani army is more than capable of maintaining state power against tribal militias and to defend its own nukes. Only a convulsive nationalist revolutionary spirit could change that — something most Pakistanis do not want. But Washington can still succeed in destabilizing Pakistan if it perpetuates its present hard-line strategies. A new chapter of military rule — not what Pakistan needs — will be the likely result, and even then Islamabad’s basic policies will not change, except at the cosmetic level.

In the end, only moderate Islamists themselves can prevail over the radicals whose main source of legitimacy comes from inciting popular resistance against the external invader. Sadly, U.S. forces and Islamist radicals are now approaching a state of co-dependency.

It would be heartening to see a solid working democracy established in Afghanistan. Or widespread female rights and education — areas where Soviet occupation ironically did rather well. But these changes are not going to happen even within one generation, given the history of social and economic devastation of the country over 30 years.

Al-Qaida’s threat no longer emanates from the caves of the borderlands, but from its symbolism that has long since metastasized to other activists of the Muslim world. Meanwhile, the Pashtuns will fight on for a major national voice in Afghanistan. But few Pashtuns on either side of the border will long maintain a radical and international jihadi perspective once the incitement of the U.S. presence is gone. Nobody on either side of the border really wants it.

What can be done must be consonant with the political culture. Let non-military and neutral international organizations, free of geopolitical taint, take over the binding of Afghan wounds and the building of state structures.

If the past eight years had shown ongoing success, perhaps an alternative case for U.S. policies could be made. But the evidence on the ground demonstrates only continued deterioration and darkening of the prognosis. Will we have more of the same? Or will there be a U.S. recognition that the American presence has now become more the problem than the solution? We do not hear that debate.

Graham E. Fuller is a former CIA station chief in Kabul and a former vice-chair of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council. He is author of numerous books on the Middle East, including The Future of Political Islam.

Posted: May 10, 2009 03:41 PM

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Daughter of Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai sent to U.K.

Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Our Heroes on October 15th, 2012

Young activist, 14, wounded in targeted Taliban shooting

Supporters of the Pakistani political party Muttahida Qaumi Movement chant prayers in support of 14-year-old schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban for speaking out in support of education for women, at the party headquarters in Karachi, Pakistan, Oct. 10, 2012. (Shakil Adil/AP)

Pakistan sent a 14-year-old activist who was shot and seriously wounded by the Taliban to the United Kingdom for treatment Monday, saying she would require prolonged care to fully recover from the physical and psychological effects of the attack.

The shooting of Malala Yousufzai and two of her classmates as they were returning home from school in Pakistan’s northwest on Oct. 9 has horrified people inside and outside the country. Tens of thousands rallied in Pakistan’s largest city on Sunday to support her.

She was shot by the Taliban for promoting girls’ education and criticizing the militant group.

Malala flew out of Pakistan on Monday morning in a specially equipped air ambulance provided by the United Arab Emirates, said the Pakistani military, which has been treating the young girl at one of its hospitals.

A panel of doctors decided to send Malala to a centre in the United Kingdom “which has the capability to provide integrated care to children who have sustained severe injury,” said the military in a statement sent to reporters.

Malala, who was shot in the head, will need to repair damaged bones in her skull and will require intensive “neuro rehabilitation,” said the military. The decision to send the girl abroad was taken in consultation with her family, and the Pakistani government will pay for her treatment.

Bullet removed from body

Pakistani military doctors earlier removed a bullet from Malala’s body and were able to stabilize her condition.

The rally in the southern port city of Karachi on Sunday was the largest show of support yet for the girl. Some Pakistanis have expressed hope that the government would respond to the attack against her by intensifying its fight against the Taliban and their allies.

Malala Yousufzai, a 14-year-old schoolgirl who was wounded in a gun attack, has been transferred to the U.K. for treatment.(Reuters)

But protests against the shooting have been relatively small until now, usually attracting no more than a few hundred people. That response pales in comparison to the tens of thousands of people who held violent protests in Pakistan last month against a film produced in the United States that denigrated Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

Demonstrations in support of Malala — and against rampant militant violence in the country in general — have also been fairly small compared to those focused on issues such as U.S. drone attacks and the NATO supply route to Afghanistan that runs through Pakistan.

Right-wing Islamic parties and organizations in Pakistan that regularly pull thousands of supporters into the streets to protest against the U.S. have less of an incentive to speak out against the Taliban. They share a desire to impose Islamic law in the country — even if they may disagree over the Taliban’s violent tactics.

Pakistan’s mainstream political parties are also often more willing to harangue the U.S. than direct their people power against Islamist militants shedding blood across the country — partly out of fear and partly because they rely on Islamist parties for electoral support.

One of the exceptions is the political party that organized Sunday’s rally in Karachi, the Muttahida Quami Movement. The party’s chief, Altaf Hussain, criticized both Islamic and other mainstream political parties for failing to organize rallies to protest the attack on Malala.

‘Daughter of the nation’

He called the Taliban gunmen who shot the girl “beasts” and said it was an attack on “the ideology of Pakistan.”

“Malala Yousufzai is a beacon of knowledge. She is the daughter of the nation,” Hussain told the audience by telephone from London, where he is in self-imposed exile because of legal cases pending against him in Pakistan. His party is strongest in Karachi.

Many of the demonstrators carried the young girl’s picture and banners praising her bravery and expressing solidarity.

Malala earned the enmity of the Pakistani Taliban for publicizing their behaviour when they took over the northwestern Swat Valley, where she lived, and for speaking about the importance of education for girls.

The group first started to exert its influence in Swat in 2007 and quickly extended its reach to much of the valley by the next year. They set about imposing their will on residents by forcing men to grow beards, preventing women from going to the market and blowing up many schools — the majority for girls.

Malala wrote about these practices in a journal for the BBC under a pseudonym when she was just 11. After the Taliban were pushed out of the Swat Valley in 2009 by the Pakistani military, she became even more outspoken in advocating for girls’ education. She appeared frequently in the media and was given one of the country’s highest honours for civilians for her bravery.

Many hope the shooting of Malala will help push the military to undertake a long-awaited offensive in the Pakistani Taliban’s last main sanctuary in the country in the North Waziristan tribal area.

The Pakistani Taliban said they carried out the shooting because Malala was promoting “Western thinking.” Police have arrested at least three suspects in connection with the attack, but the two gunmen who carried out the shooting remain at large.

Posted: Oct 15, 2012 12:53 AM ET

Last Updated: Oct 15, 2012 3:00 AM ET

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Princess of Peace Malala’s Legacy for All Humanity-The Brutes also hurt Kainat (the Universe). How Ironic?

Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Our Heroes on October 15th, 2012

Kainat (her name means the Universe), is another victim of Malala’s assassins. How ironic!

These brutes not only hurt Malala (the Wise), but also, hurt Kainat (the Universe), and Shazia (the Unique). How true, they hurt the whole human family, by attacking our wisdom, hurting our universe, and trying to destroy our unique yearning for peace. We humans forgot our differences of religion, race, class, or social status around the globe. We were all hurt. Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, and Seculars were one in our grief. A little Gul Makai from remote corner of Swat, united whole of Mankind, because she was an Ambassador for Peace and reflected the best in Humanity. If you take away the clayers which divide us like nationality, race, religion, underneath lies our humanity. We all wept as one race, the only race, the Human Race. One for All and All for One. Let this be Malala’s Legacy for Humanity. She is our Princess of Peace.

Military says Malala is making “satisfactory progress”, as teenage activist shot by Taliban struggles for life.

Our Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban is in critical condition and has slim chances of recovering, a source in the hospital where she is being treated has told Al Jazeera.

The source said on Sunday the next 12 hours were critical for 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who is hospitalised in the city of Rawalpindi.

Yousafzai has “very limited chance of life left”, said the source, declining to be identified because he is not authorised to speak to the media.

“[The] face and head swelled alot. Face complexion [has] become dark. She could be removed from ventilator within a few hours,” he said.

The Pakistani military said on Saturday that Malala’s condition was stable. The military spokesperson said that “she was making steady and satisfactory progress, and possibilities of transfer overseas were still being considered”.

A specially equipped air ambulance provided by the UAE has been kept as a contingency in case, board of doctors overseeing her, decide to shift her abroad.

The shooting of Yousafzai, who campaigned for the right for women to have an education, has been denounced worldwide and by the Pakistani authorities, who have offered a reward of more than $100,000 for the capture of her attackers.

‘Satisfactory’ progress

The military earlier said Yousafzai’s “vitals are okay” although they said she was on ventilator.

“A board of doctors is continuously monitoring her condition,” the army said.

Raja Pervez Ashraf, prime minister, visited Malala on Friday, paying tribute to her and two friends who were also wounded when a gunman boarded their school bus on Tuesday and opened fire.

“It was not a crime against an individual but a crime against humanity and an attack on our national and social values,” he told reporters, pledging renewed vigour in Pakistan’s struggle with fanatical militancy.

Kainat (the Universe), one of the other two girls injured in the attack, is in a stable condition and is expected to make a full recovery within two weeks. She was shot in her upper right arm.

Shazia (the Unique), the third victim, is due to be released from the combined military hospital in Peshawar and return to swat soon, her family told Al Jazeera.

The attack has sickened Pakistan, where Malala won international prominence with a blog that highlighted atrocities under the Taliban who terrorised the Swat valley from 2007 until a 2009 army offensive.

Activists say the shooting should be a wake-up call to those who advocate appeasement with the Taliban, but analysts suspect there will be no seismic shift in a country that has sponsored radical Islam for decades.

Schools opened with prayers for Malala on Friday and special prayers were held at mosques across the country for her speedy recovery at the country’s top military hospital in the city of Rawalpindi.

Schools open

Local police officials told Al Jazeera that the investigation into who was responsible for the attack was ongoing. The perpetrators were witnessed escaping into a nearby slum.

Police had taken in 60 to 70 suspects for questioning, but all were subsequently released. No one is currently being held in the Swat region in connection to the shooting.

Schools in Afghanistan opened Saturday with special prayers for the quick recovery of Yousafzai, in a move officials said was to show solidarity with her.

Witness: A documentary on Malala’s work in Swat

“To show sympathy to Malala Yousafzai around 9.5 million students all over the country in 15,500 schools and education centres offered prayers for her quick recovery,” education ministry spokesman Amanullah Iman told the AFP news agency.

“The students also expressed their solidarity to their sister [Malala] because the attack on her was an attack on education,” he said.

“Malala is just a girl and student like us, she shouldn’t have been shot,” Freshta, a 10 grade pupil told AFP.

“Today we recited Quran and prayed for her recovery,” she said.

Clerics on Friday declared the attempt on her life, made by Pakistani Taliban gunmen while the 14-year-old girl was on her way home from school in the Swat valley, to be “un-Islamic”.

The joint fatwa, or religious edict, was issued by at least 50 scholars associated with the Sunni Ittehad Council, and appealed to worshippers to observe a “day of condemnation” on Friday.

“Islam holds the killing of one innocent person as killing the entirety of humanity,” Hamid Saeed Kazmi, a former religious affairs minister in Pakistan,

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PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION: Appeal for the Release of Dr. Afia Siddiqui

Posted by zohaib_baqi in Pakistan's Hall of Shame on October 14th, 2012

http://www.petitiononline.com/petitions/af258633/signatures?page=135

ACTION ALERT

It is a shame that only 6000 people signed this petition.

The world has 6 billion people, including 1.2 billion Muslims, 2.1 billion Christians & Jews, 1.0 billion Hindus and Sikhs, and 0ver 1.2 billion Secularists and others.

Sign Asian Human Rights Commission’s Urgent letter of Appeal which will send an email to President Obama, PM Karzai, PM Pervez Ashraf, Farooq Naek & Rehman Malik

Sign the online petition for her release

Join Facebook groups to participate in digital activism to raise awareness here and here

Spread the word by email & SMS to all your contacts so as to create more pressure

The Abduction, Secret Detention,
Torture, And Repeated
Raping Of Aafia Siddiqui

12-15-8

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.

By marriage to his nephew, she’s also reputedly linked to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the “principal architect of the 9/11 attacks,” according to the 9/11 Commission. He reportedly “gave her up” after capture on March 1, 2003, and shortly thereafter she and her children disappeared.

The DOJ also connects her to Adnan El Shukrijumah, another suspected Al Qaeda member “involved in terrorist planning with senior Al Qaeda leaders overseas and across America,” according to John Ashcroft.

Aafia’s friends and family deny all charges. They call her an innocent victim of US persecution, and an especially egregious one for being ravaged in detention. One supporter (Abu Sabaya) said this about the woman he knew:

“I want you to come to know of the concern and dedication that this woman had for Islam as described by those who knew her – a dedication that was manifested by way of actions that were very simple and easy, yet seldom carried out by those who are able.

Those who knew Aafia recall that she was a very small, quiet, polite, and shy woman who was barely noticeable in a gathering. However….she would say what (was) needed” when necessary.

While at MIT, she organized drives to deliver Korans and other Islamic literature to Muslims in local prisons. She was also dedicated to Islam on campus where fellow students described her as soft-spoken, studious, religious, but not extremist or fundamentalist. She wrote three instructional guides on the faith. More as well on how to run a daw’ah table to provide religious information and training for da’iyas (callers to Islam). She wrote:

“Imagine our humble, but sincere daw’ah effort turning into a major daw’ah movement in this country! Just imagine it! And us, reaping the reward of everyone who accepts Islam throught this movement (for) years to come. Think and plan big. May Allah give this strength and sincerity to us so that our humble effort continues and expands until America becomes a Muslim land.”

Aafia taught local Muslim children on Sundays, but her greatest passion was to help oppressed Muslims worldwide. She spoke publicly, sent emails, gave slideshow presentations, and raised donations while a student and caring for three young children at home.

Because of her faith, activism, and passion for the oppressed, it’s little wonder she was targeted and why Assistant US Attorney Christopher LaVigne called her “a high security risk” despite no evidence to prove it.

Her Background and What Happened

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 Affia’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.

At one time, Bagram (north of Kabul at the US air base) held twice as many prisoners as Guantanamo and likely still holds hundreds. They’re crammed into wire cages, routinely tortured, forced to sleep on floor mats, and have buckets for latrines, or at least did until recently. Many prisoners are held secretly, have been there for years, have no access to lawyers, or any knowledge of the allegations against them. Most, perhaps all, are innocent victims and guilty only of being Muslims at the wrong time in the wrong place.

What’s known about Bagram comes from released or transfered prisoners who got access to counsel. In early 2008, The New York Times also reported that the International Committee of the Red Cross filed a confidential complaint with US authorities charging that its detainees were held incommunicado for weeks or months in isolation cells and subjected to cruel treatment (torture) in violation of international law.

In February 2005, The London Guardian reported that a prisoner named Mustafa was blindfolded, handcuffed, gagged, and forced to bend down over a table by three US soldiers. They then “forcibly rammed a stick up my rectum….I could not stop screaming when this happened.”

Another case involved Wesam Abdulrahman Ahmed Al Deemawi. For over a 40 days, he was threatened with dogs, stripped and photographed “in shameful and obscene positions,” placed in a cage with a hook and hanging rope, and hung on it blindfolded for two days. Both men were never charged and were later released.

Other prisoners were beaten, chained, hung from the ceiling by their wrists, and subjected to numerous other tortures and indignities – for months or years. In some cases so horrifically they died. Aafia and other women were (and still are) at Bagram and other US torture- prisons (including torture-ships at sea), according to British journalist Yvonne Ridley: “There are many Muslim women in the captivity of American forces and if (people remain) silent, (they’ll) lose their sisters forever.” Some are treated even worse than Aafia.

Ridley wrote about Bagram’s “Prisoner 650” and her ordeal of torture and repeatedly being raped for over four years. “The cries of (this) helpless woman echoed (with such torment) in the jail that (it) prompted prisoners to go on hunger strike.” Ridley called her a “gray lady (because) she (was) almost a ghost, a spectre whose cries and screams continue to haunt those who heard her. This would never happen to a Western woman.” It did to Aafia, other Muslim women as well, and their ordeal continues horrifically.

US and International Law on Prisoners of War and Enforced Disappearances

US and international law are clear and unequivocal on prisoner detentions and their treatment. America under George Bush defiles it, and, given the rogue team he’s assembled, the Obama administration (with or without Guantanamo) promises little or no change. These practices are grievous crimes of war and against humanity and should never be tolerated against anyone for any reason. Yet they persist.

The US War Crimes Act (1996) defines these offenses as grave breaches under the Geneva Conventions (1949) and violations of its Common Article 3. It states in part:

….”the following acts are prohibited at any time and in any place….:

— violence to life and person (including) murder, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

— ….humiliating and degrading treatment;”

— sentencing or executing detainees “without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees….recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples;” and

— assuring wounded and sick are (properly) cared for.

The US Army Field Manual 27-10 is also explicit on the rule of law. It incorporates the Nuremberg Principles prohibiting crimes against humanity, and specifically obligates soldiers to disobey illegal orders or be subject to prosecution under international law. Paragraph 498 states that any person, military or civilian, who commits a crime under international law bears responsibility and may be punished. Paragraph 499 defines a “war crime.” Paragraph 509 denies the defense of superior orders in the commission of a crime, and paragraph 510 denies the defense of an “act of state.”

Under Article VI of the Constitution (the supremacy clause), international law is part of domestic law, and US presidents take an oath under Article II, Section 1, Clause 7 to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution….” Further, Article II, Section 3 requires the president to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully exercised.”

International human rights law also strictly prohibits secret detentions. Under Principle 6 of the (May 1989) UN Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions:

“Governments shall ensure that persons deprived of their liberty are (to be) held in officially recognised places of custody, and that accurate information on their custody and whereabouts, including transfers, is made promptly available to their relatives and lawyers or other persons of confidence.”

US and international laws leave no ambiguity on torture or its seriousness when practiced. The (1949) Third Geneva Convention’s Article 13 (on the Treatment of Prisoners of War) states:

Detainees “must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited….(these persons) must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation….”

Third Geneva also prohibits physical or mental torture, all other forms of coercion, collective punishment, corporal punishments, and any type of violence. These acts are “war crimes.” Various other US and international laws also prohibit them, yet they’re official US policy, so far with impunity.

In December 1992, the UN General Assembly passed the Declaration on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance. It states that:

“any act of enforced disappearance is an offence to human dignity.” It “places the persons subjected thereto outside the protection of the law and inflicts severe suffering on them and their families. It constitutes a violation of the rules of international law guaranteeing, inter alia (among other things), the right to recognition as a person before the law, the right to liberty and security of the person, and the right not to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment….No state shall practice, permit or tolerate enforced disappearances” and must terminate any such acts “in any territory under its jurisdiction.” Such practices are crimes of war and against humanity.

In 2005, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHR&GJ, New York University School of Law) published a report titled: “Fate and Whereabouts Unknown: Detainees in the “War on Terror.” It presented “factual summaries of (28) individuals who may be in secret (US) detention sites” and included known information about Aafia at the time.

CHR&GJ said enforced disappearances happen “when individuals are deprived of their liberty by state agents and the state fails to provide information about their fate or whereabouts; through these actions, detainees are placed outside the protection of law.”

“Disappearances” include these practices:

— individuals (often unidentified) held in secret US-run or controlled “black sites;”

— individuals in foreign-based sites under US control or direction;

— individuals “extraordinarily renditioned” to “black” or other sites; and

— individuals held in conflict areas and not properly registered and/or identified, such as CIA “ghost prisoners” on US military facilities like at Bagram.

United States of America v. Aafia Siddiqui

On September 2, the Justice Department (DOJ) indicted Aafia “for attempting to kill United States Nationals in Afghanistan and Six Additional Charges.” On September 4, she was arraigned before Judge Richard Berman in US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Michael Garcia, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, stated (in a September 2 press release) that on July 18, 2008, “a team of United States servicemen and law enforcement officers, and others assisting them, attempted to interview Aafia Siddiqui in Ghazni, Afghanistan, where she had been detained by local police the day before….unbeknownst to the United States interview team, unsecured, behind a curtain — Siddiqui obtained one of the United States Army officer’s M-4 rifles and attempted to fire it, and did fire it, at another United States Army officer and other members of the United States interview team….

Siddiqui then assaulted one of the United States Army interpreters, as he attempted to obtain the M-4 rifle from her. Siddiqui subsequently assaulted one of the FBI agents and one of the United States Army officers, as they attempted to subdue her.”

Garcia said nothing about years of torture and rape at Bargram or that this frail, weakened, 110 pound woman was confronted by three US Army officers, two FBI agents, and two Army interpreters, yet inexplicably managed to assault three of them, get one of their rifles, open fire at close range, hit no one, and only she was severely wounded. As her attorney put it:

“Picture this woman who is very tiny (and extremely frail and weakened from her ordeal), and ask yourself how she engaged in armed conflict….with six (armed and well-trained) military men, how did this happen? And how did she get shot? I think you can answer that, can’t you (and question the absurdity of DOJ’s charges against her)?

Garcia outlined, but didn’t indict, on the above-listed allegations about specific “cells,” handwritten notes about a “mass casualty attack,” constructing “dirty bombs,” and using various devices and means to deliver them. It was also alleged that before 9/11 she travelled to Liberia where she was involved in illegal diamond trading to support Al Qaeda and then opened a Baltimore post office box for one of its members. None of these claims are credible or showed up in her indictment.

Count One

Attempted Murder of United States Nationals by obtaining a US Army Officer’s M-4 rifle and attempting to fire and firing it at him, two other US Interview Team members, and repeatedly stating her intent and desire to kill Americans.

Count Two

Attempted Murder of United States Officers and Employees in the same manner while they were engaged in and on account of the performance of their official duties.

Count Three

Armed Assault of United States Officers and Employees in the same manner.

Count Four

Discharge of A Firearm During (a) Crime of Violence as described above.

Count Five

Assault of United States Officers and Employees as described above.

Count Six

(Further charges of) Assault of United States Officers and Employees as described above.

Count Seven

(More charges of) Assault of United States Officers and Employees as described above.

Aafia’s Deteriorating Health

In response to British MP Lord Nazir’s letter on Aafia’s whereabouts, US authorities confirmed that she’s incarcerated at Carswell Federal Medical Center, Fort Worth, TX (pursuant to an October 1, 2008 US District Court, NY judicial directive) where she’s undergoing psychiatric evaluation, but not getting desperately needed medical attention.

Nazir earlier raised questions about her detention and said “she (was) physically tortured and continuously raped by the officers at the (Bagram) prison” – for over four years. He now wants her immediately released and repatriated to Pakistan after it was learned she’s held on dubious charges plus all the horrific treatment she endured – yet is guilty of nothing.

Aafia is in deplorable condition and, according to Judge Berman, not in a correct state of mind to stand trial. On August 7, 2008, Iqbal Haider, Co-chairperson of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) expressed concern about her. He called it shocking and of grave concern that pictures of her show a beat-up frail and helpless woman, the effects of years of torture, abuse, and continuous rape. There are dark circles under her eyes, a badly repaired broken nose, “made up” teeth and crumbled lips, and overall “a picture of a severely dehydrated, sick person almost as if on the death bed. It shows the inhumane brutality of an apparently civilised nation by the administration of a country which claims to be much civilised.”

According to HRCP and Aafia’s family, her physical condition is deplorable, and she badly needs immediate medical treatment outside the Carswell prison where it’s not given. “Her wound was oozing blood,” and her clothes were soaked in it. Earlier in custody, one of her kidneys was removed, yet her abdominal pain persists. She has large stitches down her torso from the surgery, negligently done, and may be suffering from internal bleeding. Her teeth were removed. Her nose was broken and improperly reset. Her gunshot wound was incompetently dressed, and her overall condition is dire and life-threatening.

This poor woman was savaged by a criminal state operating outside the law for political advantage. Her outrageous treatment continues. Her son, Ahmed (a US citizen), is being detained in Afghanistan, but the whereabouts of her other two children is unknown.

A Final Comment

Post-9/11, the Bush administration:

— declared permanent war without cause;

— ravaged Iraq and Afghanistan;
— incited and/or engaged in other direct and proxy wars;
— militarized the country;
— enacted repressive police state laws;
— trashed the rule of law;
— made human and civil rights a nonstarter;

— defiled every human dignity imaginable;
— institutionalized illegal spying and electoral theft;
— made torture official US policy;

— criminalized dissent;

— waged war on working Americans;

— engineered the largest ever wealth transfer to the rich;
— turned government into a crime syndicate;
— looted the national treasury;
— bankrupted the nation;

— criminally defrauded the public; and
— waged a global jihad against Islam.

Aafia is one of its most aggrieved. She’s been destroyed physically and emotionally. Her former being no longer exists. Her survival is in jeopardy, yet she remains incarcerated, has been indicted, will be tried, likely convicted, and may spend the rest of her life in prison. And for what? For her faith, devoutness, ethnicity, humble charity, all at the wrong time in America. The message to everyone is clear. We’re all Aafia Siddiquis.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre of Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].

US Government is claiming that nobody in Pakistan cares for Dr.Afia Siddiqui, please tell them they are WRONG. Pakistanis do care and circulate this petition to all in your address book and ask them to sign this petition. She is a Pakistani and was handed over to the US by the dictatorial Musharraf government. Irrespective of our class, creed, ethnicity, or religion, let us sign it as purely humanitarians, who care about the suffering of this mother, who has now been incarcerated under intolerable conditions. Her jail term is so draconian, it reminds one of Jean Valjean of Les Misérables.

Let us target I million people to sign this petition. Tell the media, you support this petition.

“Whoever among you sees an evil action, let him change it with his hand [by taking action]; if he cannot, then with his tongue [by speaking out]; and if he cannot, then with his heart [by hating it and feeling that it is wrong] – and that is the weakest of faith” (Narrated by Muslim, 49)

Appeal for the Release of Dr. Afia Siddiqui & Her 3 Children

PAKISTAN/USA: A lady doctor is missing with her three children since five years after her arrest

Name of victim: Ms. Dr. Afia Siddiqui and her three children
Block 7, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Karachi, Sindh province
The units of the alleged perpetrators: Intelligence agencies of Pakistan and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI-US)

I am shocked to know that Dr. Afia Siddiqui, a Pakistani citizen has been missing with her three children since April 2003, after her arrest by intelligence agencies of Pakistan. The whereabouts of children is also unknown, which is a serious act of negligence on the part of the government with regard to its responsibility to protect the citizen of the Pakistan.
According to the information I have received Dr. Afia was picked-up by Pakistani intelligence agencies while on her way to the airport and initial reports suggested that she was handed over to the American FBI. A few days later an American news channel, NBC, reported that Afia had been arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of facilitating money transfers for terror networks of Osama Bin Laden.
On April 1, 2003, a small news item was published in an Urdu daily with reference to a press conference of then Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat when, in reply to a question regarding the arrest of Dr. Siddiqui, he said she has not been arrested. But in another report the minister for interior said,You will be astonished to know about the activities of Dr. Afia. A weekly English magazine in its special coverage on Dr. Afia reported that after one week of the incident, an intelligence agency official, a motor cyclist in plain clothes, came to the house of her mother and warned We know that you are connected to higher-ups but do not make an issue out of her daughters disappearance and threatened her with dire consequences. After this development the whereabouts of Dr. Afia and her children are yet unknown.
What is also of grave concern to me is that when she was arrested by Pakistani intelligence authorities she was handed over to American intelligence agencies without being tried in Pakistan, I do not find any rationale in sending her along with her children to other country when there are Pakistani laws to deal with the suspected terrorists. It is known that President Musharraf handed over 600 suspected terrorists to America.
There are reports that in Afghanistans prison of Bagram there is a woman prison known as Prisoner 650 and that she has been severely tortured. It is also widely suspected that Prisoner 650 is Dr. Afia Siddiqui. This prisoner has reportedly lost her mind due to constant rape and ill treatment.
I remind you that this is the duty of coalition government under Prime Minister Mr. Yousaf Raza Gillani to probe cases of those Pakistani suspected terrorists who have been handed over to foreign forces in the name of war on terror. The government should also inform Pakistani citizens about the whereabouts of Dr. Afia Siddiqui and her children. I also demand that government should also ensure the safety of her children.

n the light of recent media reports, I APPEAL TO all the champions of human rights across the world to come forward and play their role in locating the unfortunate Doctor and her three children. If she is guilty, PUNISH Her but please let us put an end to this misery of her family and her innocent children.

contact details of UN high commission of human rights
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/AboutUs/Pages/ContactUs.aspx
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/hchr/contact.htm

Islamic Human Rights Commission
Email [email protected]
Web http://www.ihrc.org

Contact Amnesty International USA
[email protected]

Yours sincerely,
Fawwaz Siddiqui

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Archive for October, 2012

Stand By Malala

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‘Daughter of the nation’

Posted: Oct 15, 2012 12:53 AM ET

Last Updated: Oct 15, 2012 3:00 AM ET

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PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION: Appeal for the Release of Dr. Afia Siddiqui