By Dawud Aisha
Foreign Office Spokesperson Dr Mohammad Faisal has said that he believes Dr Aafia Siddiqui does not want to return to Pakistan but Dr Siddiqui's sister, Fowzia told the Independent Urdu that this isn’t true and that Dr Siddiqui wants to return to Pakistan. Haven spoken to her sister on the phone and she said she is ready to sign any kind of document to get out of jail. This confirm reports that the Government and it's intelligence units have been hindering her return home, while making false promises to appease the populace.
Early last year, Tens of thousands of Pakistanis took to the streets in protester, in response to strong rumours sweeping across Pakistan that Dr Aafia Siddiqui, a cause célèbre across the Muslim world, had died in the Texas jail where she is serving an 86-year prison sentence having been convicted in a US court of seven counts of the attempted murder of US soldiers, this pressured the Government quickly despatched a consular official to the jail and, after a two hour meeting with Dr Siddiqui, it was confirmed that the rumours weren’t true.
“I want to get out of prison, my imprisonment in the US is illegal as I was kidnapped and taken to the US,” was Dr Affia's message to Imran Khan through Pakistan’s Consul General who paid her a visit on October 9, 2018. Exploration of a legal mechanism for her repatriation to Pakistan to complete her sentence in Pakistan, where at least she would be safe and would be able to meet her mother and children, who she has not met in eight years, was recommended.
Then, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in a tweet said they were looking into ways to facilitate Dr Siddiqui’s return to Pakistan. The government gave us hope, said talks were under way with America and that she will get some good news between January and March but there is nothing but silence. Until
Dr Aafia Siddiqui would be free now if she was not a Pakistani citizen. Despite all the demonstrations and protests in Pakistan — and tears shed for the so-called “Daughter of the Nation” — she is not going home. Astonishingly, not one single official request has ever been made to the US authorities by the government in Islamabad to have her released.
It is believed that she is the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice; a pawn in a rotten game between certain sections of US intelligence and Pakistan’s own spy agency, the ISI, who has previously hindered her freedom via prisoner exchange negotiated by Al Qaeda as far back as 2014.
Dr Aafia Siddiqui who was shot by US soldiers at point blank range in a police cell in Afghanistan then kidnapped and renditioned to America in July 2008. It was nearly four weeks before she was given any consular access, yet US Ambassador Anne Patterson stood in Islamabad and lied and lied and lied about the case of Dr Siddiqui, claiming that her rights were not violated.
The US is neither the peoples’ friend nor their master but the influence it has brought to bear in the Muslim world in recent years has been extremely negative. This influence has wrecked US foreign policy in the Middle East and will destroy its goals especially in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the rest of Muslim world.