The daughter of Pakistan, who has been illegally imprisoned for more than 20 years, is finally getting some recognition from her own government. Yes, the case of Aafia Siddiqui has a ray of hope as major developments are taking place.
Pakistan’s Foreign Office (FO) has formally referred the long-standing case of Dr Aafia Siddiqui to the Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) for further legal opinion regarding the government of Pakistan’s assistance in the US court regarding the release of Dr Aafia Siddiqui.
This decision may seem bureaucratic on the surface, but for many in Pakistan, it opens old wounds and revives unanswered questions that have haunted the national conscience for over two decades.
So, who is Dr Aafia Siddiqui, and why is she called the “most oppressed muslim woman of the world?”
The Daughter of Pakistan: Aafia Siddiqui
Dr Aafia Siddiqui, a brilliant neuroscientist and educationalist trained at MIT and Brandeis University, was once hailed as the pride of Pakistan. She was a devout Muslim woman (“devout”, not “extremist”) with academic accolades that made international headlines. But her story took a harrowing turn in 2003 when she disappeared from Karachi along with her three children.
What followed was a nightmare narrative, and she became the biggest example of the aftermath of 9/11 in the Muslim world at the hands of a murky intelligence network.
She reappeared five years later in Afghanistan at Baghram airbase, allegedly in U.S. custody. The FBI claimed she was caught with notes related to terrorism and with cyanide in her bag, yet no actual attack or material proof ever tied her to operational planning. Even to this day, the USA couldn’t paint her as a terrorist despite trying multiple times.
In 2010, she was convicted in a U.S. court for the attempted murder of American soldiers during an interrogation in Ghazni. Because of this, she was sentenced to 86 years in Forth West prison, Texas.
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Aafia’s Trial Shrouded in Doubt
Many legal experts and human rights advocates have questioned the fairness of her trial. There were no fingerprints, no gunpowder residue and no ballistics to prove that she had fired a weapon. In fact, no U.S. personnel were injured in the incident.
And most importantly, what was she, a supposed terrorist, doing behind curtains instead of bars? If she was even a threat to start with.
“They really thought that she was [because she went to MIT] that she was some sort of physicist that could make a nuclear bomb”, stated Clive Stafford Smith, the civil rights lawyer who has been representing Dr. Aafia Siddiqui’s case.
As per reports, including from Al Jazeera, faith and gender may have played an outsized role in shaping the perception around her. While the U.S. claimed she was dangerous, supporters have long argued that her identity as a devout Muslim woman was the thing that made her an easy target for a system riddled with post-9/11 paranoia.
If justice is truly blind, why does it seem so selective in her case?
Pakistan’s Role: A Question of Sovereignty or Silence?
Among many other discussions, Pakistan’s complicity in handing over Aafia Siddiqui also gets raised. So, was Aafia traded in for favours? Did Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus hand her over to the U.S. under the guise of counterterrorism cooperation?
For years, critics have slammed successive Pakistani governments for doing little beyond lip service. Whispers of backdoor deals, intelligence handover and political expediency swirl around her abduction.
The Siddiqui family states that Aafia was kidnapped by Pakistani agencies and subsequently handed over to American agencies, but the government has openly denied any involvement.
The recent move by the FO to seek legal guidance from the AGP has revived hopes that Islamabad may, at long last, be gearing up for more concrete diplomatic action. But Pakistanis have heard this before.
Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch emphasised that the government remains in contact with U.S. authorities and that Pakistan continues to extend consular services to Dr Siddiqui.
While commendable, critics argue these are merely symbolic gestures.
Will Dr. Aafia Ever Be Free?
With global human rights discourses gaining traction and a more vocally Muslim-aware political climate in Pakistan emerging, there is renewed pressure on the state to revisit cases like Dr Aafia’s. The world has come to see through the Western lies and double standards.
Even though the USA, under the government of Joe Biden, denied handing over Aafia to Pakistan but her supporters know that one day their fight will be successful.
There have also been solid alibis and evidence that clearly show that Aafia’s imprisonment is just a blatant act of injustice. People have seen the torture she goes through repeatedly, and how forged proofs were once planted against her name, and people now refuse to sit idly by.
Referring the case to the AGP could be a procedural move, or it could mark the first real step in Pakistan mounting an aggressive diplomatic campaign for her repatriation or sentence reduction. This time, the state owes her more than a file transfer.
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