Mobilization for Sister Aafia Siddiqui

Brother Mauri Saalakhan has informed New Trend that there are mobilizations planned for March 2016, to bring public attention to the case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui in Boston, New York, DC, and Fort Worth, Texas. Please urge everyone to invite the entire community to participate.

Sister Aafia in many ways is like the patron saint of the Islamic Movement, even though she did not choose that role. "If the US isn't doing anything about it, if the Pakistanis don't do anything about it, people like Daesh (the Islamic State) will exploit the case," her sister told the Pakistan Tribune. Aafia was a very vibrant and enthusiastic student activist at MIT and Brandeis, who was obsessed with helping other Muslims. She organized a campaign to collect winter boots for Bosnia. The winter boots campaign was initiated by Benevolence International Foundation, whose founder Enaam Ernaout is currently facing loss of citizenship after serving 8 years in prison after the charity was targeted by Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft in the Bush years.

This woman is very close to my heart because at the time, I too was collecting winter boots for Bosnia. I was going door to door asking for donations of boots and winter clothing. My local mosques were stacked to the ceiling with donations, which we then trucked over to Chicago.

I believe Sister Aafia was targeted by the Zionists for all kinds of wild accusations because she appeared in the Boston Globe, speaking for her Islamic Students' Association, saying: "Islam is such a beautiful religion that if Americans learned about it, they would all want to become Muslims." The Jews twisted her into someone who was trying to impose Shariah on America.

Is it a coincidence that a short time later, she and her children were abducted from a taxi in Pakistan in 2003? They just disappeared. Aafia was then imprisoned at Bagram, a US run prison, where she was raped and brutalized.

Nobody knew anything about her whereabouts until the day there was a Taliban attack on Bagram Prison. A suicide bomber exploded the entranceway of the prison, killing security guards. Hundreds of prisoners were released back into their community. They were all telling the same story. There is a woman prisoner among the men, and they could hear her constantly wailing for her children, who had been taken from her by the soldiers. The baby is presumed dead. It was extremely emotionally disturbing to listen to, even for these hardened men.

A British official, Lord Nazir Ahmed was alerted as to the situation by his constituents. I ran into him visiting a mosque in the Boston area and talked to him about it. After the UK inquiry as to the identity of this woman, a few days later Aafia was said to be "found wandering around Afghanistan" totally disoriented, then re-arrested by the United States.

"She was dropped off in Ghazni (Afghanistan) and reunited with her son in 2008, near the governor's compound; later taken back into custody and shot by an American soldier while awaiting re-interrogation," Mauri Saalakhan explained.

An eyewitness said that Aafia, when she saw the US soldiers, thought that they were here to save her. So she started walking towards them. However, she was shot in the stomach. In order to clean up their story, the US Army claims that she attacked the soldier. She was sentenced to 86 years in prison for the crime of being shot by a US soldier. They left the bullet inside her for months. Then, when she finally got surgery, it never properly healed. She went from being the prettiest girl in the world to a bent over old lady in a very short span of time.

Now, nobody even knows if she is alive or dead. She is imprisoned at Federal Medical Center Carswell, the same place where environmental activist Marie Mason and Attorney Lynne Stewart were held before her release, praise God.

"When Aafia left, couple of hours or so later, there was a knock at the door. My mom walked to the gate and asked 'who is it?'" Fowzia Siddiqui, Aafia's sister told AFP.

"He... said something like: 'If you say anything or report this to the police, you will have four dead bodies'."

Fowzia Siddiqui is a medical doctor. She has not been granted permission to visit with her sister or even to speak with her on the phone. This is very unusual prison treatment for an incarcerated person in the United States. We need to step in.

The Jericho Movement is also trying to get an independent doctor to determine the health status of various political prisoners. The system so far is preventing it. As prisoners age and experience decades of incarceration, it is vital that we are able to send our own doctors in to check on them.

http://newtrendmag.org/ntma1634.htm

Aafia Siddique’s Appeal Mysteriously Withdrawn

TMO 

On October 9, 2014, Dr. Aafia Siddique’s family announced that US District Judge Richard Berman had without any warning ordered the case closed for the appeal of her conviction. The openly hostile, Zionist activist judge, the same judge who sentenced Aafia in early 2010, denies this. The Nation, Pakistan reported that Berman stated he had “allowed” Dr. Aafia Siddiqui to withdraw what could be the last appeal of her conviction on charges of attempted murder. Berman claimed that Siddiqui, who is serving an 86-year sentence at Carswell prison medical centre in Texas, had ‘clearly and unequivocally’ stated her intent to end the appeal. Berman added that even if the appeal had continued, he likely would have ruled against her.  

Salman Khan of the Free Aafia Movement said the organization had made vehement attempts to protest the racist judge’s inclusion in the appeals process, but they were unable to have him removed from proceedings due to lack of legal funds.

“Just to reopen the trial costs $150,000, and then to remove him it would have cost us a further $100,000,” he said.

Reuters reports that Aafia wrote a statement, “I refuse to participate in this system of total injustice that has punished and tortured me repeatedly, and continues to do so, without my having committed a crime.” She wrote that she wanted to be sent home to Pakistan through diplomacy, not through the legal system.

However, Aafia’s sister, Dr. Fowzia Siddique said mystery shrouds the circumstances. She is convinced that Aafia’s statement was coerced. In their last communication, Aafia said she was “determined to fight her case.”

“This is not Aafia’s decision. I know because my last conversation with her was that she was visited [in her dreams] by our prophet Muhammad, saw, and he was pleased with my efforts and the appeal. She said it is for this reason I consent, and if we don’t connect again DO NOT believe any statement to the contrary on my behalf.”

“Since then we have had absolutely no contact with her. I know she did not withdraw of her own free will. She has been coerced. God knows how much torture [she’s been forced to endure], complete solitary and manipulations…. It horrifies me to even think about what she has been forced to go through.”

Aafia, who is being held in solitary confinement, has not been allowed phone calls to her family in Pakistan since initiating her appeal.

“We have not been allowed [in-person contact] with her at any time. There is a prison rule that she gets to speak to family for 300 minutes per month – as long as the family pays for the call. We did get that order, and the only time that was implemented was when there were worldwide demonstrations – at those times there were calls. But since filing the appeal they have kept Aafia completely incommunicado,” stated her sister.

Mauri Saalakhan of the Peace and Justice Foundation comments, “While Malala Yousafzai is being celebrated for her accomplishments and yet unfulfilled future potential, Aafia Siddique is wasting away in a maximum security prison cell on a military base in the land of ‘liberty and justice for all!’”

Aafia received her university training in America, graduating with honors from MIT and the Jewish university Brandeis, where she was active in Muslim student groups. She was quoted in the Boston Globe as saying that if Americans would know more about the beauty of Islam, they would all want to become Muslims. This innocent statement of youthful idealism caught the attention of the local Zionist organizations.

Soon later, in 2003, Aafia was wanted by the FBI for questioning for possible ties to al Qaeda because she made a debit card purchase at a US army surplus store. She and her children were kidnapped by Pakistani authorities while awaiting a train.  Aafia was placed into one black car and the crying children into another. They were handed over to US agents and held incommunicado in Afghanistan for five years. Aafia’s baby was never seen again. The two older children were rescued from Bagram prison some years later as a result of intervention from the UK and are now living with relatives.
Instead of receiving an apology, this tiny woman, who never did anything more radical than collecting boots to donate to Bosnia, has been named as one of the FBI’s most wanted “terrorists.” Her isolation covers up some dark secrets, the government hopes.

Siddiqui was never even charged with links to terrorism. The FBI agents, US soldiers and interpreters said that as they were about to interrogate her at an Afghan police compound in Ghazni, Afghanistan, she supposedly grabbed a rifle and began shooting at them. None of them were wounded, but she was shot in the abdomen when they “returned fire.” At her trial, Aafia’s lawyer argued that there was no evidence the rifle had been fired.

Aafia approached the US soldiers because she thought they were there to save her from her Afghani captors! Aafia was being raped and tortured at the US military’s Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Instead of helping her, the US government committed her to life at Carswell, where she has reportedly been forced to walk on the Quran in addition to other humiliations.

What has been done to this innocent Pakistani woman and her children in the name of the US War on Terror is so sick and so awful that it would turn the stomaches of every citizen of the United States if they knew about it. Popular opinion would instantly turn dead against this criminal use of the American government.

“Had Aafia’s appeal reached its logical end, many hidden facts would have come to light, and many important people unmasked. This just proves Aafia is a victim of international power politics and her captives have a lot to hide and will revert to any length to keep her behind bars,” Fowzia told reporters.

Why Was Aafia Siddique's Appeal Withdrawn?

Scholar, teacher: Stripped Naked, Forced to Desecrate the Qur'an. Horrific Injustice. Why Was Aafia Siddique's Appeal Withdrawn? 


"With the attention and celebration that greeted the selection of Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai and India's Kailash Satyarthi for the world's most coveted peace prize, one would think that the American establishment has a special regard for young, accomplished (and committed) Muslim women. An honest review of the record would show that quite the opposite is true," writes Mauri Saalakhan of the Peace and Justice Foundation. "While Malala Yousafzai is being celebrated for her accomplishments and yet unfulfilled future potential, Aafia Siddique is wasting away in a maximum security prison cell on a military base in the land of 'liberty and justice for all!'"

On October 9, 2014, Dr. Aafia Siddique's family issued an announcement that US District Judge Richard Berman, without any warning, had ordered the case closed for the appeal of her conviction.

Aafia's sister, Dr. Fowzia Siddiqui told Al-Jazeera that she is convinced that "coercion tactics" were used to make her withdraw her appeal because according to their last communication, Aafia said she was "determined to fight her case."



Aafia, who is being held in solitary confinement, has not been allowedphone calls to her family in Pakistan since initiating her appeal.

"We have not been allowed [in-person contact] with her at any time. There is a prison rule that she gets to speak to family for 300 minutes per month - as long as the family pays for the call. We did get that order, and the only time that was implemented was when there were worldwide demonstrations - at those times there were calls. But since filing the appeal they have kept Aafia completely incommunicado," stated her sister.

"This is not Aafia's decision. I know because my last conversation with her was that she was visited [in her dreams] by our prophet Muhammad, saw, and he was pleased with my efforts and the appeal. She said it is for this reason I consent,and if we don't connect again DO NOT believe any statement to the contrary on my behalf."

"Since then we have had absolutely no contact with her. I know she did not withdraw of her own free will. She has been coerced. God knows how much torture [she's been forced to endure], complete solitary and manipulations.... It horrifies me to even think about what she has been forced to go through."

Previous reports about her treatment at Carswell included stripping her naked and forcing her to walk on the Quran in order to be allowed to attend hearings - one reason she has held back from the appeal until receiving spiritual permission. Therefore it makes no sense that Aafia would withdraw her appeal now. She has nothing to lose by appealing.

Reuters reports that Aafia wrote a statement, "I refuse to participate in this system of total injustice that has punished and tortured me repeatedly, and continues to do so, without my having committed a crime." She wrote that she wanted to be sent home to Pakistan through diplomacy, not through the legal system.

The openly hostile judge, the very same judge who sentenced her in early 2010, is reported to have ordered the case closed. Even if the appeal had continued, he likely would have ruled against her, he said. The Nation, Pakistan, reported that US District Judge Richard Berman stated he had "allowed" Dr. Aafia Siddiqui to withdraw what could be the last appeal of her conviction on charges of attempted murder. Berman claimed that Siddiqui, who is serving an 86-year sentence in a prison medical centre in Texas, had 'clearly and unequivocally' stated her intent to end the appeal.

According to Salman Khan of the Free Aafia Movement, the ruling came as a shock as they had hoped that the application for a retrial would receive a fair judgment. Despite vehement attempts to protest his inclusion, he said they were unable to have him removed from proceedings.

"Just to reopen the trial costs $150,000, and then to remove him it would have cost us a further $100,000," Khan said.

In 2003, Aafia was wanted by the FBI for questioning for possible ties to al Qaeda and was detained by Pakistani authorities. This tiny woman was named as one of the FBI's most wanted "terrorists." She was handed over to US agents and held incommunicado in Afghanistan for five years.

Siddiqui was never charged with links to terrorism. The FBI agents, US soldiers and interpreters said that as they were about to interrogate her at an Afghan police compound in Ghazni, Afghanistan, she supposedly grabbed a rifle and began shooting at them. None of them were wounded, but she was shot in the abdomen when they "returned fire." At her trial, Aafia's lawyer argued that there was no evidence the rifle had been fired. No bullets, shell casings or bullet debris were recovered.

Before the US brought her captive to the US, Siddiqui's family says Aafia was raped and tortured at the US military's Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Aafia has become a popular figure in her home country of Pakistan, which has influenced a wide variety of Islamic fighting groups to attempt to win her release. It is hard to think of any other woman in the world who is so deeply loved by millions of people around the world.

In 2011, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan took a Swiss couple hostage and said they could be freed if Siddiqui were released. In Afghanistan, the Taliban asked for her release as part of a deal to free US Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. ISIS proposed swapping American journalist James Foley for her, but the US refused and allowed his execution.

http://newtrendmag.org/ntma1572.htm

Attorney Lynne Stewart Released from Prison!

January 9, 2014 by TMO 

Lynne Stewart and husband Daniel Poynter stepping off plane.

Famous civil rights defense attorney Lynne Stewart was freed from Carswell medical prison in Texas and welcomed by a group of cheering supporters at Laguardia Airport in New York City on January 1, 2014. Stewart, 74, was granted “compassionate release” because she is suffering from Stage 4 breast cancer, after Stewart’s doctor said she had only 18 months to live.

Earlier petitions for her release had been denied. Stewart’s freedom is the result of organized public pressure, including over 40,000 signatures collected on a petition via change.org.

On December 31, 2013, Judge John Koeltl finally conceded that her “terminal medical condition and very limited life expectancy constitute extraordinary and compelling reasons that warrant the requested reduction [of her sentence].”

“We the people got her out!” cheered Lynne’s husband, Ralph Poynter to the crowd.

Stewart will seek treatment at Sloane-Kettering hospital in New York. She lives with her son under the standard rules of parole for an ex-convict. She is allowed to travel within the local area and there are no special restrictions on who she can talk to.

“She would have rather stayed in jail than agreed to be restricted in what she says to people,” Poynter told TMO.
The attorney, known for representing controversial, poor, and often unpopular defendants, is considered the arch-enemy of John Ashcroft. She dedicated her life to fighting his subversions of the US Constitution.

Stewart’s integrity even won the respect of her opponent, US Attorney Andrew McCarthy, who said he found Stewart to be “eminently reasonable and practical” and commented that “when she gave her word on something, she honored it.”

“Her smile is infectious and her manner disarmingly maternal, and she can home in like sonar on the weakness in a prosecution case,” wrote Michael Powell in the Washington Post.

Stewart was convicted on charges of providing material support to the Egyptian group, Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya in 2005 “for distributing press releases on behalf of her client, Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric known as the ‘blind Sheikh.’” reports Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!

Former US attorney general under Ronald Reagan, Ramsey Clark had originally persuaded Stewart to take Rahman’s case.

“We hit it off,” Stewart said about Rahman, “He’s really an incredible person.”

During Rahman’s trial, Stewart argued to the jury that Rahman had been framed for his political and religious teachings and not, as the prosecution alleged, for conspiring in any violent acts against the United States.

She infuriated the government by continuing to speak of the imam as innocent and visiting him in prison, even after he had been convicted. She also alienated fellow defense attorneys, who backed away from supporting her libertarian stance regarding the ongoing struggle for the establishment of an Islamic government in Egypt.

“I’m not going to say what’s healthy for someone who lives somewhere else in the world,” she said.

This was too much for some liberal progressive defense lawyers, many of whom harbor stereotypical Islamophobic sentiments very similar to those of government prosecutors, even while taking on Muslim clients.

Stewart’s outspoken support of her client was interpreted by the government as “a plot to obtain the release” of the imprisoned spiritual leader, who is serving a life sentence in solitary confinement for “inspiring” the first World Trade Center bombing with his politically-charged sermons at a mosque in New York.

The federal government’s indictment of Stewart in April 2002 marked the first time that it had brought charges of conspiring to provide material support for terrorist activity against a defense attorney in a terrorism case.

“It wasn’t just to punish her, but to send a message of intimidation to other committed lawyers who might follow her lead,” writes Mauri Saalakhan of the Peace and Justice Foundation.

“How could I be happier? I feel like I’ve waited my whole life for this fight!” Stewart told supporters in 2004, knowing she was facing the possibility of life in prison.

Chris Hedges describes her trial: “The state demanded an outrageous 30-year prison sentence. It showed the jurors lurid videos of Osama bin Laden and images of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers, and spun a fantastic web of Islamic, terrorist intrigue.”

Stewart was accused of speaking gibberish in order to distract the prison guards so that her Arabic translator could converse in Arabic with her client during a prison visit. She then passed along a written statement from the imam regarding Egyptian politics to Reuters. The government argued that Stewart was thus aiding terrorist violence.

“His word matters,” Stewart said regarding the Egyptian imam. “He wouldn’t be the first man accused of terrorism who is released from prison when times change.”

She added that her client’s statement was followed by a clarification: “I [Omar Abdel-Rahman] am not withdrawing my support of the cease-fire (in Egypt), I am merely questioning it and I am urging you, who are on the ground there to discuss it and to include everyone in your discussions as we always have done.”

Judge John Koeltl of Federal District Court in Manhattan originally sentenced Ms. Stewart to only 28 months in prison. Expressing relief to her supporters massed outside the courtroom after the sentencing she exclaimed exuberantly: “As my clients would say, I can do this standing on my head.”

But federal prosecutors goaded by John Ashcroft appealed the light sentence, claiming that Ms. Stewart’s public statement indicated a lack of remorse. Koeltl then resentenced her to 10 years in prison.

Scheduled for surgery the week she was sentenced, Stewart instead had to wait eighteen months for that surgery. Yet, even from prison, Stewart continued to make statements to the media.

“I believe that since 9/11 the government has pursued Muslims with an ever heavier hand. However, cases such as the Sheikh’s in 1995 amply demonstrate that Muslims had been targeted even earlier as the new ENEMY—always suspect, always guilty,” she wrote to Chris Hedges of Truthdig.

“I hope that my imprisonment sends the wake up call that the government is prepared to imprison lawyers who do not conduct legal representation in a manner the government has ordained.”

Lynne Irene Stewart, born October 8, 1939, attended a Calvinist college for her BA and went on to Rutgers for her law degree. She is Swedish/German and Irish/English by parentage.

Dr. Aafia Siddique and Green activist Marie Mason are incarcerated at the same prison federal prison hospital where Stewart was held, but in a separate area. There are about 2,500 women in there, Stewart told Democracy Now!