Dr Aafia Siddiqui is now even denied religious solace: Dr Fowzia Siddiqui
KARACHI, Nov 22 (SABAH): Expressing very deep concerns on the reports that Dr Aafia Siddiqui is now even denied religious solace, leader of Aafia Movement and noted neurophysician of the country Dr Fowzia Siddiqui has demanded of the Pakistani government, US administration and global forums of human rights to take notice of this grave violation of human rights and do the needful to stop it henceforth.
She said that Aljazeera has published a report entitled “most oppressed Muslim woman in the world now denied religious solace”. The report said that there is no other woman who went through the full US Rendition to Torture program. There is no other example of a case where a woman was abducted by the CIA and their Pakistani co-conspirators along with her three small children.
And is there a parent in the world who does not tremble at the fate that befell those kids? Suleman, aged 6 months, was apparently killed when he was dropped on his head during the abduction. The CIA has never let Aafia know, but this happened on March 30, 2003, in Karachi, so it seems unlikely that the child is still alive. Yet which fate would be worse for the mother – to know the infant who was so recently a part of your body is dead? Or to hold out a faint hope two decades later that he lives?
It might seem obvious that Suleman did die once you hear what our government – the US – did to the other two. Mariam, aged 3, was taken all the way to Afghanistan, a war zone, where her name was changed to Fatima and she was involuntarily put in a family of white Christian Americans for seven years. She would still be there but for former President Hamid Karzai, who later helped get her home.
Then there is Ahmed, who was taken to Kabul and put in prison, at the age of six! He was told his name henceforth was to be Ihsan Ali and that he would be killed if he said it was anything else.
Ahmed and Mariam are both US citizens, and it is mind-boggling that the CIA, sworn to uphold the US Constitution, would do this to two children from anywhere, let alone kids carrying US passports.
The report said Aafia was herself taken to Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan where she endured five years of torture. Eventually, through an agonizing path, she ended up in FMC Carswell, a federal women’s prison in Fort Worth, Texas, serving what is essentially a life sentence.
The report said that Aafia Siddiqui told her volunteer lawyer (Clive Stafford Smith) that she had not had an imam during her 16 years in prison, let alone the five years of torture before that.
However, despite the hectic efforts of the lawyer she still is not allowed to meet an Imam (religious leader) for religious solace. The Biden administration has labored long and hard to alienate Muslim Americans in its blinkered support for Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, but it is difficult to understand why this request would be denied
Now, lawyer Clive and his colleagues have filed a suit in federal court to force the issue, yet it should not take a lawsuit for the Carswell authorities to respect fundamental religious rights – they could just read the Bible, the Quran or maybe even just the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
Dr Fowzia Siddiqui strongly demanded that Dr Aafia Siddiqui should be allowed to meet a Muslim Imam and carry out her religious services in the prison as per her faith, which is also allowed by the US constitution.