Aafia Siddiqui: Takes Stand in Trial

At a hearing Thursday, U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman in Manhattan said Aafia Siddiqui, who was trained as a scientist in the U.S., can take the stand despite objections by her lawyers.

"I've determined to allow her to testify if she wishes," the judge said.

The judge also said prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan, during cross-examination, will be able to use statements she allegedly made to Federal Bureau of Investigation agents while recovering from a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

Berman determined the statements were given voluntarily and knowingly by Siddiqui despite her being "clearly uncomfortable and in some distress." She was under the watch of the FBI at the time and in restraints at a hospital in Afghanistan.

Aafia Siddiqui, 37, is accused of grabbing a U.S. warrant officer's rifle while she was detained for questioning in July 2008 in Afghanistan's Ghazni province and firing at FBI agents and military personnel as she was wrestled to the ground.

None of them were injured, but Siddiqui, who the U.S. government has accused of links with al Qaeda, was shot. She is charged with attempted murder, assault and other crimes and faces life in prison if convicted.

Siddiqui, who may testify on Thursday against the advice of her attorneys, hardly fits the image of a gun-slinging militant.

A tiny, frail-looking woman, she was trained in neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University.

The case raises questions that may never be aired in court and may never be answered. Was Siddiqui held in a U.S. secret prison as her supporters claim? Where are her two youngest children? Does she have ties to al Qaeda?

"We believe that this woman was kidnapped with her children in March of 2003 and that she has been held in custody by either Pakistani authorities or Americans in any of their dark side areas," one of Siddiqui's original lawyers, Elizabeth Fink, said in 2008.

The trial, which began last week at Manhattan federal court, is centered on the shooting itself and evidence about the time leading up to it is inadmissible.

"Since I'll never get a chance to speak, if you were in a secret prison ... where children were tortured," Siddiqui yelled out on the opening day of trial before being led from the courtroom. "I was never planning to bomb" New York.

AL QAEDA OPERATIVE?

Siddiqui and her three children disappeared in the Pakistani port city of Karachi in 2003, where she was living at the time, her family and Pakistani human rights groups say.

They believe she was held at Bagram, the main U.S. base in neighboring Afghanistan, and that she was raped and tortured, although they do not say what evidence they have for that.

They say Siddiqui reappeared in July 2008 when she was arrested along with her eldest son, who is now a teenager, near an Afghan police facility in Ghazni.

That son is now living with Siddiqui's sister in Pakistan. The whereabouts of her two youngest children are unknown.

The U.S. government has painted a different picture.

In 2004, Siddiqui was described by the FBI as an "al Qaeda operative and facilitator who posed a clear and present danger to America." But the charges against Siddiqui do not mention the group.

Witnesses said at the time of her arrest in 2008 Siddiqui was carrying containers of unidentified chemicals and notes referring to mass-casualty attacks and New York landmarks such as the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street and the Brooklyn Bridge.

"It's not going to get addressed -- at this trial," said Tina Foster, executive director of the International Justice Network who has attended the trial with Siddiqui's brother, Muhammad Siddiqui.

"The case is attempted murder in this room, that's all the (lawyers) are able to address."

MENTAL STATE

Last July, U.S. District Judge Richard Berman ruled Siddiqui was fit to stand trial, saying she "understands the nature of the charges and can assist counsel with her defense," but her mental state has repeatedly become an issue.

Siddiqui has interrupted witness testimony repeatedly and has been removed from the courtroom.

During jury selection, she yelled out that Zionists should be kept off the panel.

On another day -- this time out of earshot of jurors -- she demanded a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, insisting she could broker peace between the United States and the Taliban.

On Tuesday, she waved dramatically to the court, including the jury, and said, "I'm going to boycott from now on. I'm not coming here again. Bye everyone."

This week, her defense lawyers appealed to Berman to block Siddiqui from testifying, saying she suffers from "severe mental illness," may be suicidal and will likely fill her testimony with "irrational and delusional outbursts."

Reporting by Edith Honan

FREE Aafia Siddiqui: World Wide Protests, Candle Light Vigils Planned Across the World

PROTESTS and Candle light vigils were planned in various countries in support of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.The start of Dr. Aafia Aiddiqui trial has been declared “Free Dr Aafia Siddiqui Day” across the U.S., UK, Pakistan, Australia, Spain, Qatar, Turkey, and Middle East.

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui’s trial will begin on Tuesday, January 19th 2010 at 9:00am.

New Yorkers will gather in front of Federal Court at 500 Pearl St in lower Manhattan from 8 to 9 am at Federal Court Building in solidarity with Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.

In Pakistan Dr Aafia Siddiqui is considered to be a ‘Daughter of the nation”. The Pakistani Parliament passed an overwhelming resolution in support of her and has forced the government to pay for her legal defense in U.S. courts.

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui’s torture and secret detention by U.S. forces in Afghanistan aroused enormous anger and indignation. Her continued imprisonment in solitary confinement in U.S. prisons and the continuing brutal strip searches that she is subjected are internationally condemned.

Dr. Aafia is a 36-year-old Pakistani woman who is a U.S. educated neuroscientist. She was illegally kidnapped with her three young children in Karachi, Pakistan in 2003 and taken to U.S. custody in Afghanistan, where she was held in secret detention and tortured for 5 years. She was shot and severely wounded during an interrogation by FBI agents in July 2008. She is charged with attempted murder of FBI agent(s) in Afghanistan. According to the prosecutors and all U.S. officials, she has no links to any ‘terrorist organizations’. Forensic evidence supports Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s innocence. Dr. Aafia’s fingerprints were NOT on any gun, nor her DNA nor any residue nor any bullets.

The only fact that all witnesses agree on is that Dr. Aafia herself was shot by U.S. personnel then taken from Ghazni to Bagram and finally flown to New York to be charged. Dr. Aafia Siddiqui at every court appearance continues to refuse her lawyers, to declare to the court that she has been tortured and to decry the pain of strip searches.

Her sister Dr. Fowzia Siddiqui, and family, her friends and her lawyers believe her continuing statements that she was tortured in Afghanistan and the children were terrorized in US custody. The family and friends have fought for support from the Pakistani government and international human rights organizations.

Stand for humane treatment and stand against injustice! Standing for Dr. Aafia brings light to all missing persons, victims of extraordinary rendition and people held in secret prisons. It sends the message that all human beings, especially – our sisters – Muslim women have rights!

I can never forget the way you have treated me -- but I will forgive."
Dr. Aafia to Judge Berman

Facebook Group:

Dr. Afia Siddiqui - Prisoner 650
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21777867538&ref=ts

Release Dr. Afia Siddiqui! (Urgent Appeal)
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28530506102&ref=ts

Please sign The Petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/af258633/petition.html

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

Dr. Afia Interview in Urdu

Dr. Afia Siddiqui who is detained in the US has appealed in her message to Pakistanis that Pakistani citizens should never be handed over to the US.

Meanwhile, the Senate Committee for Human Rights has presented its report regarding Dr. Afia Siddiqui, which asks the Government to provide legal aid to Dr. Afia Siddiqui and make efforts for her repatriation.

The report points out that Dr. Afia Siddiqui was put through unusual torture in the US.

Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed has said that no charge has so far been proved against Dr. Afia Siddiqui.

Chairman Senate Committee S.M. Zafar said he held a two-hour long meeting with Dr. Afia Siddiqui in Texas.

Advisor for Interior Affairs Rehman Malik and Senator Raza Rabbani on the occasion said all the expenses of providing legal assistance to Dr. Afia Siddiqui will be born by Pakistan government.



Dr. Afia Interview in Urdu (PDF)

Extraordinary rendition

comment: Extraordinary rendition —Niloufer Siddiqui

While preventing possible future terrorist attacks is justifiably paramount among a state’s foreign policy concerns, to do so in a manner which comports with international laws and treaties is essential both to building global alliances necessary to combating terrorism and to ensuring that the rule of law is upheld

Recent news reports detailing the harrowing experience of Pakistani national Muhammad Saad Iqbal, released to his home in Lahore after six years in American captivity, provide further evidence — if more was needed — of the policies adopted by the Bush administration in the name of national security and in blatant disregard of international norms of human rights.

On January 7, the New York Times reported that Iqbal had been captured in Jakarta, Indonesia, transferred to Egypt, and then kept captive at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. After a year of torture and interrogation, and having yet to be charged with any crime, he was transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, where he was to remain for five years.

Such cases are not rare and far between.

In late 2003, Khaled El Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, was captured in Macedonia and taken to Afghanistan, where he was interrogated and tortured in a secret CIA-run detention and interrogation facility known as the “Salt Pit”. El Masri was released five months later, with no explanation provided to him for his detention.

A year earlier, Italian citizen Abou Elkassim Britel was apprehended in Lahore by Pakistani authorities, and was allegedly tortured and interrogated by Pakistani intelligence officials before being sent to a detention centre in Morocco. His repeated requests to speak with the Italian embassy were ignored in Pakistan, and he remains today imprisoned in Morocco, sentenced for his alleged involvement in terrorist activities in a local trial that failed to comport with internationally recognised trial standards.

The mysterious circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Aafia Siddiqui, now a well-publicised story, also point to her having been rendered from Karachi and held in  in solitary confinement for many years.

And these are just the better-known examples. With growing media coverage and increasing public outrage, causing more countries to seek accountability from their governments, it is likely that more information about these clandestine activities will soon be revealed.

Extraordinary rendition — the practice of abducting terrorism suspects and transferring them from one foreign state to another for interrogation, detention or arrest — is an example of a policy that has marked the post-9/11 era.

Effectively an extralegal system that denies suspects fundamental legal safeguards, including the opportunity to challenge their transfers, extraordinary rendition has come to be seen as synonymous with the ‘outsourcing of torture’. Because the countries to which the suspects are transferred are those which do not have functioning legal systems, or which do not conform to international legal standards, critics argue that rendition permits the use of harsh interrogation procedures not permitted under US laws.

Pakistan’s role in this clandestine policy has been made apparent partly through the accounts of persons who were rendered and subsequently released. In his account Enemy Combatant, former Guantanamo detainee Moazzem Begg outlines his experience of being abducted from his home in Islamabad. The investigative work of a handful of journalists has also successfully traced the flight logs of these so-called ‘ghost planes’, depicting the routes of the flights which transported terror suspects in complete secrecy from one interrogation centre to another.

Pakistan is just one of the many countries which has aided and abetted the United States in carrying out its extraordinary rendition programme. While speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press in 2005, Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif confessed that the Egyptian government had assisted the CIA with between 60 and 70 renditions.

Additionally, a Council of Europe report released in 2006 implicated numerous European countries in being complicit in the CIA’s extraordinary rendition programme. The report claims that the CIA ran secret prisons in Poland and Romania between 2002 and 2005, where suspects could be interrogated free of legal restraints, and that other countries, including Britain, Italy and Germany, provided the CIA use of their airspace to enable the renditions. Dick Marty, Swiss Senator and author of the report, claimed that the “the highest state authorities were aware of the CIA’s illegal activities on their territories.”

International law is categorical about the inadmissibility of torture against any detainee. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention against Torture are two examples of international treaties which the US has ratified and which specifically prohibit torture.

While the ICCPR recognises that in times of emergency, states may take measures derogating from treaty obligations, it nonetheless limits this provision by ensuring that certain rights are fundamentally non-derogable — including the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Article 3 of the Convention against Torture states, “No State Party shall expel, return (“refouler”) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”

To deny persons, even suspected terrorists, the right to due process and the right to redress is against the basic norms of inter-state conduct and an infringement of fundamental rights. Both the ICCPR and the Convention against Torture require that detainees be provided a right to seek redress for torture and an opportunity to challenge their detention in independent courts.

While preventing possible future terrorist attacks is justifiably paramount among a state’s foreign policy concerns, to do so in a manner which comports with international laws and treaties is essential both to building global alliances necessary to combating terrorism and to ensuring that the rule of law is upheld, even in the most challenging of circumstances.

As the world’s attention is focused on President-elect Barack Obama and his campaign promise for change, he is sure to face numerous challenges when he steps into office on January 20. Not least of these will be the need to reformulate a balance between national security, in a world arguably more unsafe today than it was eight years ago, and protection of human rights and regard for international opinion.

The writer is a graduate student at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and formerly worked on human rights issues at the American Civil Liberties Uni