Outside the Gulshan-e-Iqbal residence of Aafia Siddique’s parents, stand some security personnel alongside a police van. The security personnel search me thoroughly before allowing me to enter the house. Barbed wires protect the walls and on the walls hang posters of various political parties claiming their support for the release of the “Daughter of the Nation” from American brutality. One such poster belonging to the right-wing Jamaat-Us- Islaami shows Aafia alongside Malala Yousafzai and scrawled in blood red lettering is written in Urdu: “Yeh bhi tou Quom ki beti hai!” (She too (like Malala) is the daughter of this nation).
Fauzia Siddique, the sister of Aafia Siddique, greets me as I enter the residence. Fauzia, a sweet and soft-spoken lady is the founder of the Aafia Movement which has spent more than a decade crusading for the release of her sister from U.S prison. Upon asking her for the reason behind the security personnel outside, she tells me that, “I’ve received many threats over the years since this whole case began. People have threatened me to stop rallying or they will kidnap and kill Aafia’s children. They tell me that fighting for Aafia is a lost cause.”
Eleven years have passed since the disappearance of Aafia Siddique, a Pakistani neuroscientist, when she left her house in Gulshan Iqbal for the Jinnah International Airport from where she was arrested over her alleged links to Al Qaeda.
She had become the symbol of the victimization not only in Pakistan but in all the other Muslim countries where U.S imperialism has set its roots but now Aafia Siddique is nothing more than a bargaining chip for terrorists.
Earlier this year, underneath an avalanche of news related to the protests held by PTI , there were some interesting developments taking place in Aafia Siddique’s case. The jihadists of ISIS reportedly demanded the U.S Government to hand over Siddique in exchange for the journalist James Foley. The United States Government declined for such an exchange to take place and instead allowed the journalist to be beheaded by the ISIS.
This single incident changes the trajectory of the Aafia Siddique’s case. ISIS demanding for her release is tantamount to saying that Aafia has in fact some support and connections with Al Qaeda and ISIS. No statement has been released by the present PMLN Government denying such demands by the ISIS. This goes on to show the present government’s lack of political will to bring Aafia Siddique back to Pakistan.
“My sister would have been devastated to hear her name linked to such groups as ISIS,” says Fauzia Siddique, when I asked her about the recent demands of ISIS who wants a prisoner exchange to take place between Aafia and the journalist James Foley.
These swaps like the one with the journalist James Foley are not the first of their kind in Aafia’s case. Earlier in 2011, the Raymond Davis case emerged with the religious Parties demanding for the release of Aafia Siddique in exchange for the CIA agent Raymond Davis. Even the parents of the victims murdered by Raymond Davis agreed for a swap but changed their decision when the U.S government decided to give blood money to the families of those who were killed.
When I asked Fouzia about what the present government of PML (n) has done to bring Aafia back, she replied that, “Apart from my meeting with the Interior Minister Chaudary Nisaar earlier this year who promised that the government is taking steps to bring my sister back there haven’t been any concrete attempts to do anything regarding her case.”
Shaza Fatima Khawaja, a parliamentarian belonging to the ruling political party, PML (n), and a Professor of International Relations at a leading educational institution in Pakistan when asked whether the PMLN government has considered bringing back Aafia to Pakistan as one of their priorities said that, “The government is dealing with problems that were handed over to us by the previous government of Asif Ali Zardari. Aafia was arrested and flown to the U.S precisely during this time. The Raymond Davis case also took place within the tenure of the PPP Government. It is not that the government has entirely forgotten her but you have to understand that Pakistan is already in the middle of a war with the Taliban. Bringing Aafia back will take some more time.”
When I asked Fouzia who she thinks is responsible for her sister’s disappearance from Pakistan, she at once blamed former dictator Pervez Musharraf along with the ISI. “The ISI was clearly involved in her kidnapping. This incident was not possible without any help from within.”
Aafia’s case is the story of hundreds of missing Pakistanis who disappeared after the September 11 attacks. Both the CIA and ISI have collaborated to bring about such disappearances.
She has been dubbed as “The daughter of Pakistan” by Pakistani political parties and some label her as Lady Al Qaeda. It is clear that the narratives emerging from both the U.S and Pakistan are conflicting. The Boston Globe recently ran a feature length story on Aafia Siddique. Starting from her college days at MIT the Globe maps the road that took Aafia to become the most wanted woman in the world. Interviewing her classmates at MIT and her former husband Amjad Khan who divorced her according to himself “only when she became too radical form him and urged him to accompany him to Afghanistan to wage Jihad against the U.S forces in Afghanistan”. The Globe conveniently concludes that Aafia Siddique is not different from the Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzaad.
A video shot in 1991 at an Islamic Convention held in Houston, shows Aafia Siddique, then a sophomore at MIT where she did her major in cognitive neuroscience, cladded in a yellow scarf, waving her little fists in the air while giving a talk on why Islam is a savior and a protector of women. “Islam elevates women to a level that has no parallel. Let me give you an example: Our western philosophers and saints say that the women is the seat of the devil while the Quran calls her Mohsina and a Fortress against the devil.” In the remaining part of the video Aafia tells her “brothers and sisters” in Islam what has gone wrong with the west and why Islam is the best solution to all the evils that corrupt the western societies.
The video, no doubt, confirms her religious upbringing in an upper-middle class family and explains why she must have been an easy target for the FBI investigators looking for individuals involved in suspicious activities revolving around Islam prior to the 9/11 attacks but it doesn’t explain the unjust charges held against her which led to her being sentenced to serving 86 years in an U.S prison. Aafia is convicted of attempted murder of two U.S security officials who were supposed to interrogate her in a police headquarters in Ghazni, Afghanistan. It is important to note that the charges have nothing to do with her alleged terrorist activities and connections with major AL- Qaeda leaders like Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and Ammar al- Baluchi who the FBI claims is Siddique’s second husband.
The PPP government spent a whooping two million dollars for her trial only to see her being sentenced to 86 years in prison. Lately, Aafia Siddique has been reported to have withdrawn from what would have been her last appeal to the U.S court in a statement showing her disdain with the U.S Justice system. This incident has major repercussions which can really seal her case once and for all. When I asked Fouzia Siddique about this incident she claimed that, “According to what I have been told, Aafia never ended her appeal. When I last conversed with her, I asked her to have faith in Allah and carry on with the case. Now since last year we have been out of touch with Aafia solely because they (the U.S court) won’t allow us to talk to her. Even if Aafia stops her fight which I know for a fact she won’t, I with all the strength that Allah has given me will fight over her release until the last moment.”
Fauzia’s high hopes of bringing her sister back are not far-fetched as they might appear to be, there are some legal routes that the Pakistani government can take. To gain insight into these legal routes, I interviewed Mr. Sikandar Shah, who is a professor teaching International Law at LUMS and renowned lawyer and activist. “The government can seek help from two conventions,” he says, “the European Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons and the Inter-American Convention on Serving Criminal Sentences Abroad, as a mode of prisoner exchange. Earlier in 2013, there was an attempt by the government to make use of these conventions involving an exchange of Dr Shakil Afridi with Dr Aafia Siddique but these exchanges failed for unknown reasons. But it is clear that the two of these conventions provide a legal framework whereby the sentence of the person accused could be reduced. The European Convention on the transfer of Sentenced Persons also states that each party may grant pardon, amnesty or commutation of the sentence in accordance with its Constitution or other laws.”
According to the website dedicated to the Aafia Movement, 4300 days have passed since Aafia last disappeared from the Karachi Airport. The media and the politicians seem to have forgotten about her case. The right-wing parties like Jamaat-us-Islaami who have carried out protests on such occasions as the Raymond Davis scandal seem to have forgotten the one whom they once called “the Daughter of the Nation”. “It is my duty to remind the people of the injustice done to my sister, Aafia serves as a symbol for what this war on terror has cost us,” says Fauzia Siddique.
