March 29 and 30 Protests To 'Free Aafia Siddiqui!'
Tell U.S. Government “Free Aafia Siddiqui”
Dr. Aafia is a symbol of all that is wrong with the US government and its wars. Dr. Aafia is a Pakistani woman and mother, a U.S. educated neuroscientist, and a graduate of MIT and Brandeis University. She was illegally kidnapped with her three young children in Karachi, Pakistan in 2003, and then taken to U.S. custody in Afghanistan. Dr. Siddiqui was held in secret detention and tortured for 5 years. In 2008, as news of her secret detention and torture by U.S. forces in Afghanistan leaked out, it aroused national anger at press conferences and meetings across Pakistan. Then US officials suddenly claimed they had just found and arrested Dr. Siddiqui in Afghanistan.
US officials claim that Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was shot and severely wounded during an interrogation by FBI agents in July 2008. The same FBI agents were responsible for guiding the investigation of the crime scene. They claimed this 90-pound woman attempted to murder U.S. soldiers and FBI agents while in U.S. custody. She is now imprisoned at FMC Carswell, Forth Worth Texas.
*Also, please take note that FMC Carswell is where the US Empire holds its women political prisoners. Colombian revolutionary "Sonia"--Anayibe Rojas Valderrama, kidnapped by US intelligence agencies and wrongfully convicted, was given a 17 year sentence in Carswell Prison for standing against US war and injustice in her own country. The FBI raids and grand jury subpoenas of the 23 anti-war activists in September 2010 were in part due to their opposition to US war in Colombia and the demand for "Freedom for Sonia!"
Please join the Fort Worth Texas protests:
Friday, March 29, 2013
Protest rally to demand “Free Aafia Siddiqui!”
US District Court, 501 W. 10th Street,
Fort Worth, Texas (10th and Lamar St., Burnette Park),
3PM to 5PM
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Protest march and rally “Free Aafia Siddiqui!”
FMC Carswell,
Fort Worth, Texas,
12 noon
all to Repatriate Dr. Aafia Siddiqui to Pakistan
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is a citizen of Pakistan. She was not charged with committing any crime on U.S. soil, nor is she a U.S. citizen. Dr. Siddiqui, serving an 86-year sentence in federal prison in Carswell, Texas, was not charged with terrorism, nor was she ever charged with injuring or harming anyone anywhere. She is a victim of terrible life-threatening injuries. She should not have been extradited to the U.S. or put on a show trial in the U.S. She should not be held in solitary confinement.
Siddiqui and her family have repeatedly maintained that she and her three young children were kidnapped in March 2003 and that, while in U.S. custody, she was tortured and held in isolation for five years in Afghanistan.
Aafia Siddiqui holds a place in the hearts of people of conscience internationally, irrespective of their faith, nationality or location. Her case represents the U.S. policy of secret rendition and the many disappeared and missing in Pakistan.
March 2013 marks the 10th year of Dr. Siddiqui’s political imprisonment – five years of secret imprisonment and torture overseas, and five years of imprisonment under unconstitutional conditions in the United States.
There is immense international outrage about the past torture and the present conditions of Dr. Siddiqui's imprisonment. The campaign to secure the repatriation of Dr. Siddiqui to Pakistan has the support of millions of people in Pakistan.
A petition to U.S. and Pakistani government officials urging Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s immediate repatriation to Pakistan is available at: http://iacenter.org/SiddiquiPetition/
