Sarkozy stresses Iran sanctions

Can someone please please tell me why is he still the President? It seems to me he is poking his nose everywhere and anywhere nowadays. Unnecessarily. Messy affair just like his marriage.


Sarkozy, on a three day visit to China, told Hu that the time for sanctions against Iran is near [Reuters].

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has stressed the urgency of ongoing efforts to curb Iran's nuclear programme.

Sarkozy, who is on a three-day visit to China, said that while he understands Beijing's wish to have dialogue and engage with Iran, stronger actions should be taken if dialogue does not achieve results.

"China hopes to give dialogue every opportunity, France understands this," he said at a joint press briefing with Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, in the Chinese capital, Beijing, on Wednesday.

"The whole question is to examine at what point the absence of constructive dialogue, must lead to sanctions in order to enhance constructive dialogue. Everyone is convinced that moment is approaching."
in depth

Sarkozy's visit was billed as a return to healthy diplomatic relations between the two countries after spats over Tibet.

France, and two other permanent UN security council members, Britain and the US, have been pressing for a fourth round of UN penalties on Iran for its refusal to halt a key part of its nuclear programme that could be used to make weapons.

Iran says it only wants the technology to produce nuclear power.

China and Russia, also permanent members of the security council, have important commercial links to Iran and have been reluctant to support new sanctions.

Relations between France and China collapsed in 2008 after protests by exiled Tibetans and other activists during the Olympic torch's passage through Paris and Sarkozy's talks with the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader.

Mend relations
Hu told Sarkozy that he was "willing to further expand China-France relations through a deep exchange of views".

Besides Iran, Sarkozy and Hu were expected to discuss Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea and Myanmar, a French official said on Tuesday.

The two leaders said they also discussed reforms of the international financial system, agreeing that instituting more controls was key to preventing another global financial crisis like the one in 2008 that revealed flaws in financial regulation.

Hu said that China believes that the emphasis in the reform of the international financial system should be focused on strengthening financial controls.

"We believe the global financial crisis has not changed the long-term momentum of global economic growth," he said.

Source: Al-Jazeera

Stray Thoughts..

I was looking through one of my textbooks on the theory of the "Others" by Foucault. It appears to me that it is applicable till now and many still cited him as one of theorists who extensively and comprehensively explains the people who belong to the group "Others".

Think about the Muslims, the uneducated, the poor, the handicap, or anyone who does not have any traits that constitute as the norm. But what is the norm? what happened to the word equality? What happened to the word justice? Is it just lip service or are we too plain ignorant?

Sometimes it makes me wonder why people act the way they act? why some people decide to deviate and go unconventional? why people choose to rebel than to conform? What is this all about freedom of thinking and practising what we preached? Nothingness. Futility. Trashy worse than pornography.

This world is fake. Can't wait for Paradise. Jannah.

Afghan school girls 'poisoned'

Oh no! who would do such a nasty thing to such innocent girls? Don't the culprits know that they are innocent? Blind? These blinded creatures must have listened to excessive The Rolling Stones.

At least 13 girls have fallen ill after a suspected poisonous gas attack at a school in northern Afghanistan.

The government has accused fighters opposed to female education of being behind the attack.
Sunday's incident - the third in Kunduz province - brings to 80 the number of school girls reporting symptoms such as headaches, vomiting and shivering after suspected poisoning.

On Saturday, 47 girls from a different school had reported feeling dizzy and nauseous, while on Wednesday 23 girls said they felt unwell under similar circumstances.

'Strange odour'

Fauzia, a 13-year-old girl and one of those affected in the latest incident, said when she stepped out of the classroom she "smelled a strange odour and then fainted".

"I don't think my parents will allow me to attend the school afterthis incident," she said.
Another girl, 12-year-old Sumaila, said she was in class "when a smell like a flower reached my nose".

"I saw my classmates and my teacher collapse and when I opened my eyes I was in hospital."

Humayun Khamoosh, head of the Central Hospital in Kunduz, said all the girls were in stable condition after initial treatment.Authorities said they were still investigating the incidents.

Waheed Omer, a spokesman for Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, said anti-government groups intent on spreading fear were to blame for the incidents.

"Whoever prevents children from going to school is an enemy of Afghanistan and its prosperity," he said.Taliban denies involvement

But a Taliban spokesman denied the group had any involvement in the attack, and condemned the targeting of school girls.

Girls' schools have been attacked in similar fashion in other parts of Afghanistan over the past few years.

In one attack in Kandahar in 2008, around 15 girls and teachers were sprayed with acid by men on motorbikes.

During Taliban rule, from 1996-2001, girls were banned from attending school.
In parts of southern and eastern Afghanistan, particularly in Taliban strongholds, schools for girls still remain closed.

Source: Al-Jazeera

The Mujahidah Of Today's Generation

Ummu Umar al Makkiyah

Akhwati ... reading about the struggle of the Mujahidah of long-ago, sometimes a question crops up inside, "Does that type of people still exist nowadays?" The answer is “Yes, there are and a lot of them, indeed.” Especially in the various fronts of Jihad land. And it is a sunnatullah that would keep on happening. Amongst them… is the following story.

An old lady had vowed to Allah SWT to participate and help the Jihad in Afghanistan with whatever she got, including sending his beloved son to the Jihad arena.

During her stay in Makkah, Ummu Umar had already got into actions. She was istiqomah in instigating the spirits of the Makkan Mukmeenah to go for Jihad, whilst also aiding them.

By the will of Allah SWT, she succeeded in dispatching foods that she herself made at home to Afghanistan.

Subhanallah, Alhamdulillah, Allahu Akbar !!!

Preparations For Departure To Afghanistan

Her determination in going for the Jihad lands could not be contained any longer. Her strong desire was gushing inside her. She resolved to meet up with the Afghan Mujahidahs who could provide her assistance. Upon her arrival there, she insisted to go straight into the heat of the battle, even though the Mujahideen prohibited her as it was considered as a dangerous territory.

Her determination and conviction was already fixed, nothing could stop her anymore. Ummu Umar was determined to fire at the enemies herself using her own weapon. In the end the unrelenting demand of the old lady was granted by the Mujahideen.

Ummu Umar wanted to immediately meet with her Rabb. She rode the vehicle with her beloved son and entered the war zone. She wanted to fulfill an oath and be her own witness.

Her desire was satisfied by Allah. She found herself standing behind a rocket and as a result the enemies were destroyed by the explosion. She did not leave until the enemies returned fire. She was hit by some bombs which split out her chest and destroyed her heart.

Allahu Akbar … Allahu Akbar … Allahu Akbar …

Ummu Umar had fulfilled her words.

May Allah SWT record her as a Shuhada … insya Allah.

( Sour©e: Muslimah in Jihad, Yusuf Al ‘Uyairi ET.AL )

Read also: Confessions Of A human Bomb From Palestine

Green Zone - a revelation we have been waiting for

If you enjoyed Bourne Supremacy & Bourne Ultimatum, trust me you will not be disappointed with Matt Damon's latest film: Green Zone. Gripping, whiplash and invigorating; it is worth every cent of your money. I bet you won't even touch your drink or pop that popcorn in your mouth coz it's so smooth and moving that it glues your eyes to the screen, almost without a blink.


What I like to take away from the movie is that it is an example the folly of ignorance and ambition emanating from inside the Green Zone, a safety area including the old Republican Palace where American decision-makers remain cut off from the Iraqi reality. Like finally, someone has the courage (and balls) to show the asininity of the US government. Accolades to Paul Greengrass and the Bourne team for the ingenious masterpiece. Genial!!


If you have the time, pls get hold of a fantastic read by former Washington Post Baghdad chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone", where the movie takes inspiration.

Israel's Negev 'frontier'

By Ben White

On this year's Land Day, tens of thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel marched in Sakhnin, an Israeli city in the Lower Galilee, to protest against past and present systematic discrimination. But with the focus on Israel's policies of land confiscation, there was significance in a second protest that day.

In the Negev (referred to as al-Naqab by Palestinian Bedouins), over 3,000 attended a rally at al-Araqib, an 'unrecognised' Palestinian Bedouin village whose lands are being targeted by the familiar partnership of the Israeli state and the Jewish National Fund.

The historical context for the crisis facing Palestinian Bedouins today is important, as the Israeli government and Zionist groups try to propagate the idea that the problems, so far as they exist, are 'humanitarian' or 'cultural'.

Even the category of 'Bedouin' is historically and politically loaded, with many disputing what they see as an Israeli 'divide and rule' strategy towards the Palestinians.

Alienated and 'unrecognised'

During the Nakba, the vast majority of the Palestinian Bedouins in the Negev - from a pre-1948 population of 65,000 to 100,000 - were expelled. Those who remained were forcibly concentrated by the Israeli military in an area known as the 'siyag' (closure).

The military regime experienced by Palestinian citizens until 1966 meant further piecemeal expulsions, expropriation of land, and restrictions on movement. Ultimately, only 19 out of 95 tribes remained.

The defining dynamic between the Israeli state and its Palestinian minority has been the expropriation of Arab land and its transfer to state or Jewish ownership.

Israel refused to recognise the land rights of the Palestinian Bedouins, who today are alienated from almost all of their land through a complex combination of land law and planning boundaries.

An estimated 70,000 to 80,000 Palestinian citizens in the Negev live in dozens of 'unrecognised villages' - communities that the state refuse to acknowledge exist despite the fact that some pre-date the establishment of Israel and others are the result of the Israeli military's forced relocation drives.

These shanty towns are refused access to basic infrastructure.

One approach the Israeli state has taken is to create, or 'legalise', a small number of towns and villages in the hope that more Palestinians will move into these areas.

Yet even this policy, often presented as a 'humane' response to 'Bedouin' needs, highlights a disparity: Jewish regional authorities and individual farms enjoy a massively lower population density compared to the space allotted by the state to Palestinian townships, which are ranked among the most deprived communities in the country.

'Developing the Negev'

The Israeli government, meanwhile, along with agencies like the Jewish National Fund and Jewish Agency, are preoccupied with the idea of 'developing the Negev', and boosting its population.

In March, the 'Negev 2010' conference was held in Beir al-Saba' (Beersheva), drawing hundreds of politicians and business people, with the focus being attracting 300,000 new residents to the area.

Speakers included Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, Silvan Shalom, the Negev and Galilee development minister, and Ariel Atias, the housing minister.

Last year, Shalom held a joint press conference with religious Zionist rabbis to outline plans for increasing the south's population, with one of the rabbis stressing the need for a "Jewish majority" in the region.

Atias, for his part, has previously expressed his belief that it is "a national duty to prevent the spread" of Palestinian citizens.

It is not, therefore, hard to read between the lines when Israeli policy makers and Zionist officials from organisations like the Jewish National Fund talk about 'developing the Negev'.

Zionist frontier

The Negev is the location for classic, unfiltered Zionist frontier discourse.

The Jewish National Fund in the UK talks about supporting "the pioneers who are bringing the desert to life", while an article in the Zionist magazine B'Nai B'Rith called the Negev "the closest thing to the tabula rasa many of Israel's pre-state pioneers found when they first came to the Holy Land".

The idea of the 'empty' land sits uncomfortably alongside another important emphasis - 'protection' or 'redemption'.

As the Jewish National Fund's US chief executive put it in January 2009, "if we don't get 500,000 people to move to the Negev in the next five years, we're going to lose it". To who, he did not need to say.

There were no illusions about the meaning of this discourse, and its consequences, at a February conference which brought together academics and experts specialising in issues facing the Bedouins of the Negev.

Through the seminars and discussions, one theme clearly came through: The relationship between the Palestinian Bedouins and the Israeli state was rapidly deteriorating.

A number of the organisers of, and speakers at, 'Rethinking the Paradigms: Negev Bedouin Research 2000+' were themselves from the Negev, where overcrowding, home demolitions, and dispossession are features of everyday life for Palestinians.

The conference was one of the first of its kind in the UK, sponsored by the British Academy and Exeter University's Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies and Politics Department.

Excluded from discourse

Western media coverage of the structural discrimination and discriminatory land and housing policies experienced by Palestinian Bedouins has generally been poor.

In a discourse shaped by Zionist and Orientalist tropes, the Negev is a vast, wild, desert; a frontier to be civilised. The 'Bedouin', meanwhile, are either invisible or exotic savages, objects of benevolent philanthropy.

Furthermore, the international 'peace process' has meant that the question of Palestine has become the story of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian citizens of Israel have been left out, a situation exacerbated by the media mentality of 'if it bleeds it leads'. Core issues facing Palestinian Bedouins - land control, zoning, bureaucratic and physical boundaries of exclusion - are not considered suitable fare.

This nonexistent or weak coverage is regrettable, particularly as Israel's policies in the Negev towards the Palestinian Bedouin minority are highly illuminating for understanding the state's position vis-à-vis the Palestinians in a more general sense.

Moreover, tension is building in the Negev over Israel's continued apartheid-like policies. Palestinian Bedouins continue to resist the strategies of the Israeli state and Zionist agencies, through legal battles, and grassroots organisation, like the Regional Council for the Unrecognised Villages.

Perhaps one of the main kinds of resistance being offered by the Palestinians in the Negev is their determination to stay. This steadfastness is a direct refusal of a strategy of home demolitions, dispossession and Judaisation.

The recent protest in al-Araqib could only be a foretaste of things to come, as Palestinian Bedouins demand equality from a state seemingly unwilling to change.

Ben White is a freelance journalist and writer specialising in Palestine/Israel. His articles have appeared in publications like the Guardian's 'Comment is free', New Statesman, Electronic Intifada, Middle East International, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, and others. His first book, Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide, was published in 2009 by Pluto Press.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.


Source: Al Jazeera

FOCUS: PEOPLE AND POWER

Aids on the heroin road
By Michael Andersen

When Nato and its allies went to war in Afghanistan, the alliance promised to curtail the export of drugs to Europe.

Since then, the West has spent hundreds of millions of dollars setting up local agencies to fight drug trafficking, not only in Afghanistan but also along the main opium and heroin route through the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

As filmmaker Michael Andersen reports, the region is now facing another danger, a potential epidemic of HIV infections.

Madina is four years old. Her mother took her to a hospital one year ago because she was running a fever. Like many hospitals in Central Asia, this one was also sorely strapped for supplies.

Although Madina's mother paid for a fresh needle, the one that was used on her was not and she got infected with HIV.

In 2008, about 170 children in Kyrgyzstan were infected in the same manner and there are similar cases throughout Central Asia. Fourteen doctors were fired – but nobody was indicted; the families are still waiting for compensation.

"I didn't know that this disease even existed in Kyrgyzstan. I brought my daughter to the hospital, because she had pneumonia. I think she caught the virus from an IV drip which they put in her arm. I saw the nurses use the same syringe for several children," Dinara, Madina's mother, said.

"My husband did not understand this illness. When our daughter was diagnosed, he left me," the mother of another infected child says.

"People here think we are to blame, that the illness is caused by the mothers not behaving properly."

Poverty

These children's dire situation results from poverty and a lack of information, but also geography: They live on a modern day version of the Silk Road - a route that is currently used for the heroin and opium trade – from producers in Afghanistan to buyers in Europe.

"It is a fact that HIV spreads in the wake of drugs in Central Asia, so the places where drugs are smuggled, that's where you find the HIV [infected patients]," Pia Dyrhagen of Dan Church Aid in Kyrgyzstan said.

"The drugs go all the way through Afghanistan, through Tajikistan, through the rest of Central Asia which is a hub for drug smuggling, further on to Russia and to Europe."

However, Central Asian governments tend to ignore - even suppress - information about HIV. Officially, only two persons per 1,000 are infected with the virus.

"Experts say you can easily multiply that number with up to 10 and then you get the actual number of HIV infected, meaning actually more than two per cent of the population could be HIV infected," Dyrhagen said.

Two to three per cent infected among 50 million means that there is potentially at least one million living people with HIV.

Dyrhagen said: "The last 10 years - maybe 15 years - since HIV broke out in the region it was limited to risk groups. Limited to injecting drug users, to commercial sex workers, to men having sex with men, but what you see these years is that it's bridging to the general population.

"It is bridging through women having sexual relations with injecting drug users, it's labour migrants coming back from Russia where the HIV prevalence is higher, and you also have these cases of children getting infected in hospitals. Combined with a quite low level of awareness of HIV and how to protect yourself, this is like a bomb."

Local drug agencies

In order to prevent the drugs coming from Afghanistan through Central Asia to Europe, the West has spent tens of millions of dollars setting up local drug control agencies.

Stopping the drugs at the source was one of Nato's justifications for the war in Afghanistan.

But so far, there has been very limited success in this endeavour.

According to the UN, six million doses of heroin enter Tajikistan every day, and the government agencies in Central Asia seize only two per cent of the drugs travelling through the region.

Khushnud Rakhmatullaev, the spokesman for the Tajik border police, said it was fairly easy to cross the 1,300km border with Afghanistan.

"Our border guards are patrolling on foot. Sometimes they have to walk 20-30km a day, and they're only young kids. I would estimate that we confiscate maybe 10 or 12 per cent of the drugs which are smuggled into Tajikistan.

"Tajikistan is just a transit country. Most of the drugs just pass through our region and go on to destroy somebody's life in Russia, Europe or the America," he said.

Entangled in criminal networks

The UN believes that another local law enforcement is also a significant challenge. "The police have themselves become closely entangled in criminal networks engaged in contraband and drugs trafficking," the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reports.

As we travelled further along the drugs route, this view was supported. Although the police would not speak to us, some drug users alleged police involvement in the drugs trade.

"If you are a new face around here, trying to buy drugs, the police will arrest you in a second. They will arrest you, so that they can come to an 'agreement' with you. Get a bribe from you. You pay them and they let you go. Without the police there would be no drugs here," one former addict in a drop-in centre for recovering drug addicts in Khujand said.

Another addict said: "They say that there are no drugs in the prisons. Officially there are no drugs in the prisons here. But practically in all prisons there are drugs.

"But how can the drugs get in when they are heavily guarded and allow no visitors?" the addict asks.

"The only explanation is that the police bring it in. This is a simple proof that the police themselves are involved in drug dealing. Where I was in prison, 80 per cent were drug addicts."

The UN estimates that there are almost half a million drug addicts in Central Asia, the huge majority injecting heroine; the concern is that many often share needles.

"Sometime you don't have a choice. You're sitting there in the prison and there's only [one] needle. And that needle will be used by 50 or 100 people in one day."

In Osh, in southern Kyrgyzstan, we had agreed to an interview at the drugs control agency. But when we arrived, the agency had been closed down by the Kyrgyz president – no official reason was given.

As a result, Kyrgyzstan, a key point on the drugs and HIV trail, is now left without a special agency for combating the drugs trade.

Lack of information

Often drug addiction drives women into prostitution. In Osh - a town with half a million people and maybe as many as 10,000 drug addicts - there are now more than 1,000 commercial sex workers.

The organisation, 'Podruga' runs information sessions for them about the importance of using condoms.

Prostitution is a key factor in the spread of HIV. Nevertheless, many men here will pay double the fee for sex without a condom.

According to experts the lack of information is one of the biggest problems when trying to combat Aids in Central Asia.

"One thing that is still a taboo here, is the use of condoms. And if you start talking about condoms, it implies that you are not faithful to your partner, that you have other partners," Dyrhagen said.

"We made a survey, of the population in the southern regions, where HIV is most widespread, showing that 30 per cent of the respondents said that they didn't believe that condoms prevented HIV."

With poverty forcing millions of young men from Central Asia to go and work in Russia, many come back with more than just money.

"We have numbers on HIV prevalence among commercial sex workers, street prostitutes, in St. Petersburg in Russia, that 92 per cent of the street prostitutes are injecting drug users, and 50 per cent of them are HIV positive. These are the cheapest prostitutes, prostitutes on the street, and those are the ones that Tajik, Kyrgyz, whatever, labour migrants would go to," Dyrhagen said.

"This is what is happening: Central Asia labour migrants will go to prostitutes, in Russia, without using condoms, getting infected, coming back to their family, wife, etc. in Central Asia, and of course transfer the HIV to them," Dyrhagen added.

Imams inform about HIV

This situation has now convinced a group of 30 Muslim imams in Tajikistan, to bring information about HIV into the mosque.

It was Manizha Haitova, the director of the centre for mental health and HIV in Tajikistan, who came up with this unique project which is supported by Christian aid organisations.

"The imams and Islam, this is the only way, the only instruments for influence, deep influence to the people.

"In the Muslim society using condoms can only be between wife and husband.

"After our training, our participants, the imams, they provide information that if you have some behaviour, risky behaviour, abroad from the country, you should use condoms with your wife," Haitova says.

Before the Friday prayer, a leading imam told us about his participation in the project. The imams are now mentioning condoms in their services, but most are still more keen on stressing abstinence and monogamy.

"Our responsibility is to warn our congregations against using drugs and having improper sexual relations. The only guarantee is to live by Sharia law, and by the law given by God in the Quran, in the Torah and in the Bible.

"Using condoms is one way of avoiding the disease, but a condom can break. There is a Tajik saying: if you do not want to be bitten by a mad dog, just do not go close to any mad dogs," Abdulbasir Saidov, the imam of Shomansur mosque, said.

Source: Al Jazeera

Aafia Siddiqui: Victimized by American Depravity

by Stephen Lendman

Her trial proceedings were carefully orchestrated. Witnesses were either enlisted, pressured, coerced, and/or bought off to cooperate, then jurors were intimidated to convict, her attorney, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, saying their verdict was “based on fear, not fact.”

On February 3, 2010, after a sham trial, the Department of Justice announced Siddiqui’s conviction for “attempting to murder US nationals in Afghanistan and six additional charges.” When sentenced on May 6, she faces up to 20 years for each attempted murder charge, possible life in prison on the firearms charge, and eight years on each assault charge.

In March 2003, after visiting her family in Karachi, Pakistan, government Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agents, in collaboration with Washington, abducted Siddiqui and her three children en route to the airport for a flight to Rawalpindi, handed them over to US authorities who took them secretly to Bagram prison, Afghanistan for more than five years of brutal torture and unspeakable abuse, including vicious beatings and repeated raping.

Bogusly charged and convicted, Siddiqui was guilty only of being Muslim in America at the wrong time. A Pakistani national, she was deeply religious, very small, thoughtful, studious, quiet, polite, shy, soft-spoken, barely noticeable in a gathering, not extremist or fundamentalist, and, of course, no terrorist.

She attended MIT and Brandeis University where she earned a doctorate in neurocognitive science. She did volunteer charity work, taught Muslim children on Sundays, distributed Korans to area prison inmates, dedicated herself to helping oppressed Muslims worldwide, yet lived a quiet, unassuming nonviolent life.

Nonetheless, she was accused of being a “high security risk” for alleged Al-Qaeda connections linked to planned terrorist attacks against New York landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge and Empire State Building, accusations so preposterous they never appeared in her indictment.

The DOJ’s more likely interest was her supposed connection, through marriage, to a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the bogusly charged 9/11 mastermind who confessed after years of horrific torture. US authorities tried to use them both – to coerce KSM to link Siddiqui to Al-Qaeda, and she to admit his responsibility for 9/11 – something she knew nothing about or anything about her alleged relative.

Her trial was a travesty of justice based on the preposterous charge that in the presence of two FBI agents, two Army interpreters, and three US Army officers, she (110 pounds and frail) assaulted three of them, seized one of their rifles, opened fire at close range, hit no one, yet she was severely wounded.

No credible evidence was presented. Some was kept secret. The proceedings were carefully orchestrated. Witnesses were either enlisted, pressured, coerced, and/or bought off to cooperate, then jurors were intimidated to convict, her attorney, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, saying their verdict was “based on fear, not fact.”

Awaiting her May 6 sentencing, Siddiqui is incarcerated in harsh maximum security solitary confinement at New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), denied all contact with friends and family, no mail or reading materials, or access to her previously allowed once a month 15 minute phone call to relatives.
Justice for Aafia Coalition (JFAC)

In February 2010, Muslim women in America, Britain, Canada, and Australia united in outrage over Siddiqui’s treatment and bogus conviction, demanding her release and exoneration.

March 28 was the seventh anniversary of her abduction, commemorated by a global day of protest, JFAC saying it was “to have events, demonstrations, letter-writing campaigns, khutbahs (sermons or public preaching), etc. in towns and cities all over the world in solidarity with Aafia” – for justice, against sadism and barbarity against an innocent woman, guilty of being a target of opportunity, not crimes she didn’t commit.

JFAC published a transcript of the March 26 Kamram Shahid-conducted Pakistan Front Line TV interview with Siddiqui family members, including her mother, Ismat, sister, Fowzia, and young son, Ahmed, who asked “why have they imprisoned her and why did they imprison me?” In response to whether he’d like to give his mother a message, he said:

“I love you and I am waiting for you (to) come back soon, if Allah permits.”

Ismat confirmed some of Aafia’s torture in shocking detail, saying:

She endured a lot, some of the worst of it including “six men….strip(ping) her naked. All her clothes would be removed. She told this to the Pakistani senators too, that they would strip her naked, then tie her hands behind her back, and then they would take her, dragging her by the hair. You cannot imagine the cruelty they have done to her. They would take her like this to the corridor and film her there.”

“After that, they observed that she would read the Qu’ran, from memory and from the book. They again would send six, seven men, who would strip her naked and misbehave etc. They took the Qu’ran and threw it at her feet and told her that only if you walk on the Qu’ran will we return (it) to you. She would cry and shout that she would not do it. Then they would beat her with their rifle butts so much that she would be bloodied. All her face and body would be injured. Then they used to pull out her hair one by one, just like this….They threatened (to) take her to the court like this, naked.”

After “beat(ing) her so much that she bled….they made her lie on a bed. Then they tied her hands and feet – hands and feet both tied so that she (could) not even… scratch her wounds. Then they applied torture to the soles of her feet and head. They put her in some machines to make her lose her mental stability. They gave her such injections on the pretext of medical treatment.” When she pleaded not to do it, “they would make her unconscious and then give them to her. Such is (their) cruelty.”

“This epic cruelty – and look at (the) Islamic world….They are all silent and making their palaces in Hell….She was not even a criminal in their law. And she has done no crime. They did not accuse her of terrorism. She is not a terrorist.”

Her sister Fowzia said “It is all on tape. I am not making this up. They are sadists or whatever. All the strip searching was video-taped. (She called Aafia) a poster child for this torture and rendition,” one of many others brutalized in American prisons. Court testimony revealed that her children were also tortured, Ahmed later released on condition he say nothing, two still missing and presumed murdered. “I think even Genghis Khan did not do this,” said Fowzia.

In an August 2008 address to Pakistan’s Senate, Fowzia explained that “Aafia (can’t) get justice in the US….They are sure to make her out to be a major terror figure to mask the five years of torture, rape and child molestation as reported by human rights groups.”

Her case is much more important than “my sister or one woman. Her torture is a crime beyond anything she was ever accused of (which was basically nothing) and this is a slap on the honor of our nation and the whole of humanity. The perpetrators of those crimes are the ones who need to be brought to account. That is the real crime of terror here.”

Fowzia appealed for Aafia’s extradition to Pakistan, despite little hope of expecting a government complicit in crime to cooperate beyond rhetoric. At first, it denied knowledge, then, after meeting with family, interior minister Faisal Saleh Hayat and other officials promised to work for her release, still denying complicity for what happened.

Because her ordeal sparked nationwide protests, Pakistan’s government is in damage control, apparently wants to shift blame to Washington, investigating officer Shahid Qureshi, in a report to the judicial magistrate, saying “FBI intelligence agents without any warrants or notice” committed the abduction – knowing full well about ISI’s complicity.

During conflnement, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said Siddiqui had a kidney and her teeth removed. Her nose was broken and not properly set. Her gun shot wound was improperly treated. Reuters reported that she lost part of her intestines and still bleeds internally from poor treatment. Those around her notice she’s deathly pale because of extreme trauma and pain.

After years of horrific torture and abuse, a federal Bureau of Prisons psychological evaluation diagnosed her condition to be “depressive type psychosis” besides the destructive physical toll on her body.
World Outrage and Support

The Muslim Justice Initiative (MJI) said Siddiqui’s “recent guilty verdict….shocked and outraged masses across the globe” in announcing an April 2 online webinar discussion on her behalf, featuring her brother Mohammed, sister Fawzia, noted UK journalist and Siddiqui advocate Yvonne Ridley, and Tina Foster, Executive Director of the International Justice Network (IJN). Information on the event can be found at muslimsforjustice.org.

On February 3, Siddiqui’s conviction date, IJN said the following:

It “represents the family of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui in the United States,” its attorneys “monitoring her trial, which began on January 19 and ended with a guilty verdict today in US Federal Court in the Southern District of New York.”

“Today marks the close of another sad chapter in the life of our sister, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. Today she was unjustly found guilty. Though she was not charged with any terrorism-related offense, Judge Berman permitted the prosecution’s witnesses to characterize our sister as a terrorist – which, based on copious (exculpatory) evidence, she clearly is not. Today’s verdict is one of the many legal errors that allowed the prosecution to build a case against our sister based on hate, rather than fact. We believe that as a result, she was denied a fair trial, and today’s verdict must be overturned on appeal.”

Himself victimized by US torture, including at Bagram, author of “Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim’s Journey to Guantanamo and Back,” Moassam Begg (like others), called Aafia “the Grey Lady of Bagram because she (was) almost a ghost, a spectre whose cries and screams continue to haunt those who heard her.” So much so that for six days in 2005, male prisoners staged a hunger strike in protest.

After sentencing, her next journey may be to isolated life confinement in federal Supermax hell – according to the US Department of Justice National Institute of Corrections, intended for the most dangerous criminals, guilty of “repetitive assaultive or violent institutional behavior,” the worst of the worst who threaten society or national security.

Hardly the place for a woman called shy, soft-spoken, deeply religious, polite, studious, thoughtful, and considerate of others, especially persecuted Muslims being brutalized in America’s global gulag, courtesy of an administration that pays lip service to ending torture but practices it as sadistically as George Bush and the worst of history’s tyrants.

SOURCE: Batlimorechronicle.com