Free Kashmir | PAKISTAN – USA FREEDOM FORUM | Stop Dividing |
Letter Sent to Renowned Civil and Human Rights Attorneys
We are writing to you in response to the trial and guilty verdict in the case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the U.S.-trained neuro-scientist convicted in the Southern District Federal Court in New York City on February 3, 2010. Dr. Aafia was kidnapped from Pakistan with her 3 small children in 2003 and reappeared in the U.S. controlled Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan. While being interrogated by U.S. agents, she was shot and seriously wounded in the abdomen, and was then again kidnapped and put on trial for allegedly shooting at two of the U.S. agents, neither of whom was wounded. She was convicted solely on the testimony of military and other U.S. personnel; there was no forensic evidence against her, no fingerprints on the gun, no powder burns on her hands and no bullets produced. While Dr. Aafia has been portrayed in the U.S. press as a “terror mom,” in Pakistan she is treated as the daughter of the Pakistani people, and the government was forced to put up $2 million for her defense.
In particular, we feel that it is very important that the case was not tried in open court. All visitors had to provide their identification, which was written down, and they had to sign in before they were granted admission to the court, or even to the overflow rooms. To our knowledge, this is unprecedented in trials in the U.S. It undermines the public’s belief in the fair trials and is only for purposes of intimidation, wince all visitors to the court building have already passed through security scans. It is also very important now when other trials of people accused of terrorism are coming before the courts, and this treatment of visitors to Dr. Aafia’s trial can be used as precedent.
Pakistan USA Freedom Forum, as an organization of Muslim immigrants in this country, is proud to be taking a stand on this issue that is important to the defense of Constitutional rights, freedom of speech and assembly and open courts. This country has a proud tradition of fighters for workers, civil and human rights, including Joe Hill (labor leader framed and executed in Utah in 1916), Rosa Parks (Afro-American woman who initiated the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 when she refused to give her seat on a bus to a white man), Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, William Kunstler (famed civil rights lawyer), Lynne Stewart (lawyer currently serving time in prison for aggressive defense of her client, Sheikh Rahman), and many others. We hope you will take up the case for open courts in the U.S. We will be glad to give any assistance we can.
Sincerely,
Shahid Comrade
| Dr. Muhammad Shafique President | Mr. Shahid Comrade General Secretary (917) 280-0840 |
The above letter was sent to well-known lawyers in New York City. Many of the fighters that we feel proud to associate ourselves with were known to have defended what were considered unpopular causes at their time.
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