Presidential Pardon for Aafia Siddiqui
The Issue
A Traumatized Mother
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is a noted academic educated in the US, and a mother whose trauma is unique in the so-called ‘War on Terror’: when she was abducted from her home city of Karachi as part of the bounty program she had her three small children with her.
On March 30th, 2003, Aafia's children, Ahmed (aged 5), Maryam (3), and the baby Suleiman (6 months) were riding to the airport to fly to a meeting with the education minister in Islamabad. Ahmed (a big fan of Thomas the Tank Engine) was arguing for going by train when the Pakistan military surrounded their taxi and stripped away the children from her.
Ahmed was taken by the US to a juvenile prison 1000 km away in Kabul and told that henceforth his name was Ali; Maryam was forcibly adopted into an American family in Afghanistan; and Suleiman, the helpless baby, appears to have been dropped in the chaos, and is feared dead.
“I remember we were going to Islamabad in a car when we were stopped by different cars and high roof ones. My mother was screaming and I was screaming as they took me away, I looked around and saw my baby brother on the ground and there was blood. My mother was crying and screaming. Then
they put something on my face. I smelled something and do not remember anything more.” - Ahmed, aged 5 at the time.
Aafia was sold to the US for a $55,000 bounty where she would be kept at the Bagram Air Base for five years.
Bagram
Aafia was a ghost prisoner at the Bagram Air Base known only as Prisoner 650, part of the much-criticized ‘Rendition to Torture’ program. Subjected to torture (‘enhanced interrogation’) the US apparently believed her to be an extremist.
No evidence of this has surfaced and she has never been charged with any such offence. Instead, when she was simply dumped out of Bagram, she went to Ghazni having been promised that she could be reunited with her daughter.
Accounts of what happened next differ, but one fact is undisputed: she was the only person shot. Yet she was sentenced to 86-years in FMC Carswell, a medicalized prison in Fort Worth, Texas.
Aafia has repeatedly appealed to her visitors, “please get me out of this hell.”
The Return Home
Various elements of this tragedy are also uncontested: (1) Aafia was snatched from her home 20 years ago; (2) she witnessed her 3 young children being kidnapped and has not seen any of them for 20 years; (3) she fears Suleiman
is dead; (4) she is one of the very few women was tortured; (5) all this has had a devastating impact on her.
Please join us in signing this petition and making your voice heard loud and clear, so that Aafia can be repatriated from the United States back to Pakistan. She is much weakened and we do not know how many years of life she has left.
But at the very least, Aafia Siddiqui deserves to die a free woman - away from the horrors of confinement and in the company of her loved ones.
3,841
The Issue
A Traumatized Mother
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is a noted academic educated in the US, and a mother whose trauma is unique in the so-called ‘War on Terror’: when she was abducted from her home city of Karachi as part of the bounty program she had her three small children with her.
On March 30th, 2003, Aafia's children, Ahmed (aged 5), Maryam (3), and the baby Suleiman (6 months) were riding to the airport to fly to a meeting with the education minister in Islamabad. Ahmed (a big fan of Thomas the Tank Engine) was arguing for going by train when the Pakistan military surrounded their taxi and stripped away the children from her.
Ahmed was taken by the US to a juvenile prison 1000 km away in Kabul and told that henceforth his name was Ali; Maryam was forcibly adopted into an American family in Afghanistan; and Suleiman, the helpless baby, appears to have been dropped in the chaos, and is feared dead.
“I remember we were going to Islamabad in a car when we were stopped by different cars and high roof ones. My mother was screaming and I was screaming as they took me away, I looked around and saw my baby brother on the ground and there was blood. My mother was crying and screaming. Then
they put something on my face. I smelled something and do not remember anything more.” - Ahmed, aged 5 at the time.
Aafia was sold to the US for a $55,000 bounty where she would be kept at the Bagram Air Base for five years.
Bagram
Aafia was a ghost prisoner at the Bagram Air Base known only as Prisoner 650, part of the much-criticized ‘Rendition to Torture’ program. Subjected to torture (‘enhanced interrogation’) the US apparently believed her to be an extremist.
No evidence of this has surfaced and she has never been charged with any such offence. Instead, when she was simply dumped out of Bagram, she went to Ghazni having been promised that she could be reunited with her daughter.
Accounts of what happened next differ, but one fact is undisputed: she was the only person shot. Yet she was sentenced to 86-years in FMC Carswell, a medicalized prison in Fort Worth, Texas.
Aafia has repeatedly appealed to her visitors, “please get me out of this hell.”
The Return Home
Various elements of this tragedy are also uncontested: (1) Aafia was snatched from her home 20 years ago; (2) she witnessed her 3 young children being kidnapped and has not seen any of them for 20 years; (3) she fears Suleiman
is dead; (4) she is one of the very few women was tortured; (5) all this has had a devastating impact on her.
Please join us in signing this petition and making your voice heard loud and clear, so that Aafia can be repatriated from the United States back to Pakistan. She is much weakened and we do not know how many years of life she has left.
But at the very least, Aafia Siddiqui deserves to die a free woman - away from the horrors of confinement and in the company of her loved ones.
The Decision Makers
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Petition created on June 7, 2023