Tortured and Forgotten = Dr. Aafia Siddiqui

• Name: Aaifa Siddiqui

• Nationality: Pakistani

• Resident: USA/Pakistan

• Married, three children, also missing

UPDATE: 2006 Report shows US admits having Aafia.[download]

(Cageprisoners) Aafia Siddiqui was born in Karachi, Pakistan, on March 2, 1972. She was one of three children of Mohammad Siddiqui, a doctor trained in England, and Ismet. She is a mother of three.

Aafia moved to Texas in 1990 to be near her brother, and after spending a year at the University of Houston, transferred to MIT. Aafia then married Mohammed Amjad Khan, a medical student, and subsequently entered Brandeis University as a graduate student in cognitive neuroscience.

Citing the difficulty of living as Muslims in the United States after 9/11, Aafia and her husband returned to Pakistan. They stayed in Pakistan for a short time, and then returned to the United States. They remained there until 2002, and then moved back to Pakistan.

Some problems developed in their marriage, and Aafia was eight months pregnant with their third child when she and Khan were estranged. She and the children stayed at her mother’s house, while Khan lived elsewhere in Karachi.

After giving birth to her son, Aafia stayed at her mother’s house for the rest of the year, returning to the US without her children around December 2002 to look for a job in the Baltimore area, where her sister had begun working at Sinai Hospital.

Soon after Pakistani authorities arrested Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Aafia and her children disappeared. A report in the Pakistani Urdu press said that Aafia and her children had been seen being picked up by Pakistani authorities and taken into custody.

According to Mrs. Siddiqui, Aafia left her mother’s house in Gulshan-e-Iqbal in a Metro-cab on March 30, to catch a flight for Rawalpindi, but never reached the airport. Inside sources claim that Aafia had been “picked-up” by intelligence agencies while on her way to the airport and initial reports suggest she was handed over to the FBI.

Aafia Siddiqui had been missing for more than a year when the FBI put her photographs on its website. The press was told that she was an Al Qaeda facilitator. After an FBI conference, a newspaper broke the story linking the woman involved in the 2001 diamond trade in Liberia to Aafia. The family’s attorney, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, says the allegation was a blessing in disguise because it places Siddiqui somewhere at a specific time. She says she can prove Siddiqui was in Boston that week.

She and her children have been missing since 2003. The FBI was given her name by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad under torture. At the time his family was also kidnapped, including his two young children. He knew that, and you can safely assume that they were used to coerce him. One year after her disappearance, the FBI posted her “FBI Seeking Information“.

(From an informative article at LeftTurn.org) I find that during the course of researching these detainees I begin to see patterns. It’s very very disturbing, because it points out just how far our government will go to support this “war on terror”. It’s beyond belief, The lies that have been manufactured are without a doubt, Orwellian.

As I read about her, I noticed that stories began to change. For instance, “Siddiqui’s professional field is alleged to be microbiology, she is alleged to be divorced from Mohammed Khan, or estranged from him, or he is simply referred to as her husband. Some statements have her obtaining her PhD from MIT, not Brandeis. Some attempt to portray her as a science and computer mastermind, based primarily on one 1996 article she wrote for the MIT Information Systems newsletter and the recurrent false statement that her PhD is in microbiology. Unfounded accusations appear and recede in the US media. They range from Siddiqui brokering a diamond deal in West Africa on behalf of Al Qaeda to her opening a Baltimore post office box for an Al-Qaeda member. Lately, however, there are few mentions of her, of whatever accuracy or motivation. Some renewed media attention in 2006 seems to have dwindled to silence.”

After she disappeared from Pakistan, her family was told not to make her disappearance an issue. (see “Strange Story Of Aafia Siddiqui” linked below)

They tried to contact a family member, then were put under house arrest. A family member flew in to Karachi to check on them. She found a lock on the door, and knocked, at first normally, then after getting no answer, knocked very loudly. When no one answered, the neighbors told her that they were inside, but haven’t been coming out for a long time. She flew back home three days later.

It seems to be that whatever information suits the case against her is the one that is used. There’s a lot out there, and much of it is hype. The stark contrast between what friends, family, and acquaintances is amazing. This is as plain as day,, especially if you’ve been following the detainee issue.

I’m going to include some links here. These links will show you who Aaifa is. It isn’t up to each one of us to judge her, it is up to each one of us to see that she has her day in court. It’s also up to us to ask what happened to the children? The youngest child was only 9 months old! The oldest was 7. Aaifa’s family has not seen or heard from any of them. It is our job to write to our government and demand answers.

In September 2006, Bush announced that, with the transfer of 14 people from the CIA’s secret prison program to military custody in Guantanamo Bay, “There are now no terrorists in the CIA program.” What happened to the other people in CIA detention?

Below are some excellent links:

Who’s Afraid of Aafia Siddiqui?	The strange story of Aafia Siddiqui
Surviving the Darkness: Testimony from the U.S. “Black Sites” (2007)	WHAT YOU CAN DO!

Fate and Whereabouts Unknown: Detainees in the “War on Terror” (2005) This 34-page report provides the names and detailed backgrounds of 28 individuals who may be held in U.S. secret sites. The 28 include well-known terrorism suspects such as Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as well as individuals who have not been widely reported as among those “disappeared,” including Suleiman Abdalla, Abu Naseem, and Aafia Siddiqui. The report also draws attention to the connections between extraordinary renditions and disappearances. The findings of this report have been cited by key actors, including Amnesty International; the Council of Europe and Human Rights First