- Earlier articles about her can be accessed through the
following links:
-
- http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2008/12/abduction-secret-detention-torture-and.html
-
- http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/09/aafia-siddiqui-sentenced-grievous.html
-
- http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/09/reaction-to-aafia-siddiquis-sentencing.html
-
- On September 23 in federal court, she was sentenced to
86 years in prison, though committed no crime. It's a gross miscarriage
of justice, compounding what's she's already endured, following her March
30, 2003 abduction, imprisonment, torture, prosecution, and conviction
on spurious charges.
-
- Through sentencing she was in New York City solitary
confinement and may still be there, pending transfer to Federal Medical
Center (FMC) Carswell in Fort Worth, TX, a hellhole described as a facility
"provid(ing) specialized medical and mental health services to female
prisoners." If she's there long-term, it'll be a death sentence, its
harshness precipitating it sooner, not later.
-
- On November 4, Yvonne Ridley called it "CarsHELL,"
citing its past 10 year record, including:
-
- -- over 100 young women dying under "questionable
circumstances with families unable to obtain autopsy reports;"
-
- -- instances of sex abuse, including sodomy and rape
committed by "prison chaplain Vincent Bassie" until he was charged
and convicted in 2008;
-
- -- a prison doctor convicted of sex abuse; another one
never charged for the same crime;
-
- -- a prison guard convicted of raping a detainee; an
earlier article explained rampant sexual abuse and mistreatment of female
prisoners by guards and prison officials, accessed through the following
link:
-
- http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/11/torture-in-us-prisons.html
-
- -- gross medical negligence, what's commonplace throughout
America's gulag for men, women and children;
-
- -- "forced psychotropic medication on reluctant
detainees;" and
-
- -- an "infestation of ants went unchecked even when
one patient in a coma was covered by biting creatures as was the corpse
of another."
-
- Ridley quoted The Fort Worth Weekly saying Carswell imprisonment
"can be a death sentence for women prisoners." Incarceration
there will continue her torture, abuse and violation of international and
US law, as well as Bureau of Prisons regulations that aren't enforced so,
in fact, are worthless.
-
- US Diplomatic Cables Revealed
-
- In several December 1 reports, the London Guardian discussed
them, including its article headlined, "US embassy cables: Bagram
officials deny detaining Aafia Siddiqui."
-
- US deception and lies about her date from initial accusations,
regarding a bogus plot to bomb New York landmarks, charges omitted from
her indictment.
-
- Though abducted while visiting family in Pakistan on
March 30, 2003, the FBI, on April 4, denied she was captured and detained.
On May 28, 2004, Pakistan's Interior Ministry confirmed she was turned
over to US authorities in 2003 after no links with alleged terror groups
were confirmed.
-
- Later reports named her Bagram's "Prisoner 650."
At the same time, US authorities denied holding any women there. It wasn't
until July 31, 2008 that FBI officials told Siddiqui's brother that she
was in US custody. Her family knew it years earlier.
-
- The released cables contained no bombshell information.
One dated July 31, 2008 said:
-
- "Bagram officials have assured us that they have
not been holding Siddiqui for the last four years, as has been alleged."
-
- An October 29, 2008 cable denied knowledge of Siddiqui's
children, even though her son was in US custody and two others at the time
were missing. Pakistan's Acting Foreign Secretary, Khalid Babar, raised
the issue with then ambassador Anne Patterson, who "made it clear
that US authorities do not know the whereabouts of the children, who have
never been in US custody, and noted that the Pakistani Embassy has been
given full consular access to Siddiqui," a claim very much stretching
the truth.
-
- A November 13, 2008 cable said Pakistan's Prime Minister
Yousuf "Gilani asked the US to release to GOP custody Dr. Aafia Siddiqui....argu(ing)
that the needs of her family and reports of her being ill provided humanitarian
grounds for such a transfer. He also argued that her case whipped up mass
popular support, diverting his government's attention from the counterterrorism
mission."
-
- A February 12, 2010 cable said "a group of moderate
Muslim religious leaders expressed very strong feelings about the Siddiqui
case and the guilty verdict. The religious leaders were unified in their
belief that Siddiqui did not receive a fair trial and called for mercy
on the grounds that she was a women. They claimed that the verdict detracted
from President Obama's efforts to reach out to the Muslim community and
that he should step in and release Siddiqui as a show of good faith towards
world Muslims."
-
- The US Embassy said "Siddiqui had received a fair
trial," when, in fact, it was rigged to convict.
-
- A February 19, 2010 cable discussed a February 16 Gilani/Senator
John Kerry meeting at which he:
-
- "asked USG to consider repatriating Dr. Aafia Siddiqui
on humanitarian grounds. He said that this was a very contentious issue
in Pakistan, adding that by returning Dr. Siddiqui 'the US would be in
the Pakistani people's good graces.' Both Gilani and Interior Minister
Reham Malik assured Kerry that the GOP would honor the terms of Dr. Siddiqui's
jail sentence, and suggested that she complete (it) under house arrest
(in Pakistan). Kerry agreed to look into the prisoner transfer issue."
-
- Likely not too hard as over nine months later, action
didn't follow. Siddiqui is either in New York City isolation or at FMC
"CarsHELL," perhaps there to die. If so, at least she'll have
the peace she's been denied for over seven and a half years of brutal imprisonment,
isolation and torture.
-
- On December 1, Guardian writer Declan Walsh headlined,
"WikiLeaks cables: Mystery deepens over Pakistan scientist Aafia Siddiqui,"
saying:
-
- Her family insists she's innocent, "and that she
spent the 'missing' five years between 2003 and 2008 in US detention at
the Bagram base," US denials notwithstanding.
-
- They've "been treated with skepticism by the Pakistani
media, which has given credence to the family's account and dismissed US
statements as part of a cover-up."
-
- America's major media reacted otherwise, pronouncing
guilt by accusation, biasing public opinion, branding her and other FBI
targets "terrorists," as well all or most Muslims by implication.
-
- In several articles, New York Times writers played along,
including Benjamin Weiser in his September 23 account, headlined, "Pakistani
Sentenced to 86 Years for Attack," saying:
-
- She was convicted for "assault(ing) a team of American
officers and agents who went to question her after her arrest that led
to her conviction....on charges that included attempting to kill American
officers and employees. She had been taken into custody in Ghazni, Afghanistan,
after the local authorities became suspicious of her loitering outside
the provincial governor's compound."
-
- In fact, Weiser lied from top of paragraph to bottom.
-
- Targeted for her faith, ethnicity, activism, passion
for the oppressed, humble charity, and alleged connection to Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed through marriage, she was home in Karachi visiting family. On
March 30, 2003, en route to a flight to Rawalpindi, she was abducted by
Pakistan's police or ISI at the behest of US officials, then turned over
to them as requested.
-
- Preposterous charges later accused her of the following:
-
- In the presence of two FBI agents, two Army interpreters,
and three US Army officers, this frail 110 pound woman allegedly assaulted
three of them, seized one of their rifles, opened fire at point blank range,
hit no one, yet she alone was severely wounded.
-
- At trial, no credible evidence was presented. The accusations
were concocted and spurious. None accused her of plotting to blow up New
York or any other landmarks or facilities. Yet proceedings were carefully
orchestrated. Witnesses were enlisted, pressured, coerced, and/or bribed
to cooperate. Jurors were then intimidated to convict "based on fear,
not fact," according to her attorney Elaine Whitfield Sharp.
-
- Yet Weiser accepted the official account unskeptically,
highlighting FBI director Robert Mueller calling her "an Al Qaeda
operative and facilitator," carrying bomb-making instructions and
a list of targets when arrested in 2008.
-
- It was March 2003, five years earlier, unmentioned in
Weiser's article, mostly presenting official distortions and lies, a New
York Times speciality. This time he disparaged an innocent woman, condemned
perhaps to perish in prison hell for being Muslim at the wrong time in
America.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the
Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays
at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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