The Aafia Siddiqui I Saw - by Abu Sabaya

from another forum: (islamicawakening)



"I want you to come to know of the concern and dedication that this woman had for Islam as described by those who knew her - a dedication that was manifested by way of actions that were very simple and easy, yet seldom carried out by those who are able."




- Christopher LaVigne, assistant US attorney, on August 11th when trying to convince a judge to prevent Aafia from seeing a doctor for her gunshot wound


During the time of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه و سلم), those who entered Islam were of two types: those who remained in their lands with the general populace practicing the basic tenets of the religion, and those who took it upon themselves to migrate and join the Prophet in his expeditions. There are ahadith that show that the Prophet treated these two groups differently from each other due to their difference in status. For example, Muslim and at-Tirmidhi report that when appointing a leader to a battalion, he would instruct him on how to deal with those of the enemy who became Muslims, saying: "…invite them to migrate from their lands to the land of the Muhajirin, and inform them that if they do so, they will have all the privileges and obligations of the Muhajirin. If they refuse to migrate, tell them that they will have the status of the Bedouins, and will be subjected to the commands of Allah like the rest of the believers…" This distinction was simply of one group deciding to take upon its shoulders certain responsibilities in contrast to the other whose inactivity limited them to a very individualistic, localized, benign practice of Islam. One can in essence say that the Prophet divided the practice of the Muslims at the time into two types: the religion of the Migrants (Din al-Muhajirin, whose adherents took upon their shoulders the responsibilities of aiding and giving victory to Islam), and the religion of the Bedouins (Din al-A'rab, whose adherents did not go beyond the basics).

Although the depiction is of a situation that existed over a thousand years ago, it is an eternal pattern that Muslims will be distributed amongst these levels in every era and in every place. So, one can notice this distinction even amongst the practicing Muslims of the East and West. The Din al-A'rab of the past can be compared to the Islam that is limited to the five pillars, eating zabihah, and keeping the local mosque clean. Considering how difficult it is in the West to come across even these Muslims, imagine what joy comes to the eye and heart to see those who go a step further and reach the level of adhering to Din al-Muhajirin – those whose concern spans the entire Ummah, driving them to get up and become active workers for Islam, to dedicate their every minute to the service of Allah however they can no matter what other responsibilities clutter their busy lives, to have their hearts beat with the rest of the Muslims – all this with their heads raised high and paying no regard to those around them who eat and live like cattle, as it was said:



Recently, the entire world has been speaking about one such person - a short, thin college student, wife, and mother of three small children. Her name is Aafia Siddiqui.

I want you to be drawn to the story of this woman and also understand why I was drawn to it. I want you to come to know of the concern and dedication that this woman had for Islam as described by those who knew her - a dedication that was manifested by way of actions that were very simple and easy, yet seldom carried out by those who are able.

Those who knew Aafia recall that she was a very small, quiet, polite, and shy woman who was barely noticeable in a gathering. However, they add that when necessary, she would say what needed to be said. She was once giving a speech at a fundraiser for Bosnian orphans at a local mosque in which she began lambasting the men in the audience for not stepping up to do what she was doing. She would plead: "Where are the men? Why do I have to be the one standing up here and doing this work?" And she was right, as she was a mother, a wife, and a student in a community full of brothers with nothing to show when it came to Islamic work.

When she was a student at MIT, she began organizing drives to deliver copies of the Qur'an and other Islamic literature to the Muslims in the local prisons. She would have them delivered in boxes to a local mosque, and she would then show up at the mosque and carry the heavy boxes by herself all the way down the three flights of very steep stairs. Subhan Allah, look at the Qadar of Allah: this woman who would spend so much time and effort to help Muslim prisoners is now herself a prisoner (I ask Allah to free her)!

Her dedication to Islam was also very evident on campus. A 2004 article from Boston Magazine mentions that "...she wrote three guides for members who wanted to teach others about Islam. On the group's website, Siddiqui explained how to run a daw'ah table, an informational booth used at school events to educate people about, and persuade them to convert to, Islam." The article continues to mention that in the guides, she wrote: "Imagine our humble, but sincere daw'ah effort turning into a major daw'ah movement in this country! Just imagine it! And us, reaping the reward of everyone who accepts Islam through this movement, through years to come. Think and plan big. May Allah give this strength and sincerity to us so that our humble effort continue, and expands until America becomes a Muslim land."

Allahu Akbar...look at this himmah (concern)...look at these lofty aspirations and goals! As men, we should be ashamed to have to learn such lessons from a sister.

She would drive out of her way every week to teach the local Muslim children on Sundays. I was told by a sister that she would also drive out of her way every week to visit a small group of reverts to teach them the basics of Islam. One of the sisters who attended her circles described Aafia as "not going out of her way to be noticed by anybody, or to be anyone's friend. She just came out here to teach us about Allah, and English wasn't even her first language!"

Another sister who would attend her circles describes: "She shared with us that we should never make excuses for who we are. She said: "Americans have no respect for people who are weak. Americans will respect us if we stand up and we are strong.""

Allahu Akbar...O Allah, free this woman!

But Aafia's biggest passion was helping the oppressed Muslims around the globe. When war in Bosnia broke out, she did not sit back and watch with one knee over the other. Rather, she immediately sought out whatever means were within her grasp to make a difference. She didn't sit in a dreamy bubble thinking all day about how she wished that she could go over to Bosnia and help with relief efforts. She got up and did what she could: she would speak to people to raise awareness, she would ask for donations, she would send e-mails, she would give slideshow presentations - the point I'm trying to make here is that Aafia showed that there is always something we can do to help our brothers and sisters, the least of which is a spoken word to raise awareness to those who are unaware. Sitting back and doing nothing is never an option. She once gave a speech at a local mosque to raise funds for Bosnian orphans, and when the audience was just sitting there watching her, she asked: "How many people in this room own more than one pair of boots?" When half the room raised their hands, she said: "So, donate them to these Bosnians who are about to face a brutal winter!" She was so effective in her plea that even the imam took off his boots and donated them!

There is much more to say about how passionate this sister was for Islam. However, the above gives you an idea of what she was like, and should hopefully serve as an inspiration for brothers before sisters to become active in serving Islam through whatever means are available. Remember that she was doing all of this while being a mother and a PhD student, and most of us do much less despite having much more free time.

So, having this image of Aafia in my mind, I was taken aback at what I saw when she was brought into court for what should have been her bail hearing. The door on the front left side of the courtroom was slowly opened to reveal a frail, limp, exhausted woman who could barely hold her own head up straight in a pale blue wheelchair. She was dressed in a Guantanamo-style orange prison uniform, and her frail head was wrapped in a white hijab that was pulled down to cover her bone-thin arms (the prison uniform is shortsleeved). Her lawyers quickly sat around her, and the hearing began.

The head prosecutor, assistant US attorney Christopher LaVigne, walked in with a group of three or four FBI agents, one of whom was a female who looked Pakistani (لعنة الله عليهم). The defense began by announcing that the bail hearing was to be postponed because of Aafia's medical condition. Essentially, Aafia's lawyers reasoned that there was no point of her being out on bail if she was near death. So, they demanded that she be allowed a doctor's visit before anything else. LaVigne got up and objected, saying that Aafia was a risk to the security of the United States. The judge didn't seem to buy that, and the prosecutor continued arguing that "this is a woman who attempted to blast her way out of captivity." As soon as this was said, I looked over and noticed Aafia shaking her head in desperation and sadness, as if she felt that the whole world was against her. By the way, Aafia was so small and weak that I could barely see her from behind the wheelchair. All I could see was her head slumped over to the left and wrapped in the hijab, and her right arm sticking out.

I got a better understanding of why she was so sad and desperate when her lawyer began listing details of her condition:

* She now has brain damage from her time in US custody
* One of her kidneys was removed while in US custody
* She is unable to digest her food since part of her intestines was removed during surgery while in US custody
* She has layers and layers of sewed up skin from the surgery for the gunshot wound
* She has a large surgical scar from her chest area all the way down to her torso

With all of this, she had not been visited by a single doctor the entire time of her incarceration in the US despite being in constant incredible abdominal pain following her sloppy surgery in Afghanistan - pain for which she was being given nothing more than Ibuprofen! Ibuprofen is purchased over the counter to treat headaches!

With all of this, the prosecutor had the audacity and shamelessness to try to prevent her from being seen by a doctor due to her being a "security risk." When he was pressed by the judge as to why Aafia was sitting all this time in a NYC prison without basic medical care, the government attorney stuttered, said that it was "a complicated situation," and capped it with the expected cheap shot that "it was her decision as she refused to by seen by a male doctor." As soon as the prosecutor said that last bit, I saw Aafia's thin arm shoot up and shake back and forth to the judge (as if to say 'No! He’s lying!'). I felt so sorry for her, as she was obviously quite frustrated at the lies being spilled out before her very eyes. Her lawyer then put her hand on her arm and began stroking it to comfort her and calm her down.

When the hearing was over, one scholarly statement stuck in my mind, and it is where Ibn al-Qayyim said that a person rises in his closeness to Allah until: "...there remains only one obstacle from which the enemy calls him from, and this is an obstacle that he must face. If anyone were to be saved from this obstacle, it would have been the Messengers and Prophets of Allah, and the noblest of His Creation. This is the obstacle of Satan unleashing his troops upon the believer with various types of harm: by way of the hand, the tongue, and the heart. This occurs in accordance with the degree of goodness that exists within the believer. So, the higher he is in degree, the more the enemy unleashes his troops and helps them against him, and overwhelms him with his followers and allies in various ways. There is no way around this obstacle, because the firmer he is in calling to Allah and fulfilling His commands, the more the enemy becomes intent upon deceiving him with foolish people. So, he has essentially put on his body armor in this obstacle, and has taken it upon himself to confront the enemy for Allah's Sake and in His Name, and his worship in doing so is the worship of the best of worshippers."

And this was absolutely clear that day when looking at the scene in the court. Despite Aafia's apparent physical weakness and frailty, there was a certain 'izzah (honor) and strength that I felt emanating from her the entire time. Everything from the way she forcefully shook her hand at the judge when the prosecutor would lie, to how she was keen to wear her hijab on top of her prison garments despite horrible circumstances that would make hijab the last thing on most people's minds, to the number of FBI agents, US Marshals, reporters, officials, etc. who were all stuffed in this small room to observe this frail, weak, short, quiet, female "security risk" - everything pointed to the conclusion that the only thing all of these people were afraid of was the strength of this sister's iman.

This is the situation of our dear sister, a Muslim woman in captivity…

What can I say...?

I will not close by mentioning the obligation of helping to free Muslim prisoners. I will not mention how al-Mu'tasim razed an entire city to the ground to rescue a single Muslim woman. I will not go back to the days of Salah ad-Din or 'Umar bin 'Abd al-'Aziz, who rescued Muslim prisoners in the tens of thousands. I cannot be greedy enough to mention these things at this point because what is even sadder than what is happening to Aafia Siddiqui is how few the Muslims were who even bothered to show up to her hearing in a city of around half a million Muslims (not counting the surrounding areas), and that not a single Muslim organization in the United States has taken up the sister's cause or even spoken a word in her defense, and as Ibn al-Qayyim said: "If ghayrah (protective jealousy) leaves a person’s heart, his faith will follow it."

Unfortunately, in a time where most of us are following Din al-A'rab, it seems that the best person to teach us a lesson in how to help Aafia Siddiqui would have been Aafia herself.


و الله المستعان

Jazakullah khairan for posting this sister.
Every time I try and post articles from our site, the thread is deleted.

The original article is on our site here:

http://www.al-istiqamah.com/IF/Aafia1.htm

subhanAllaah

:salamext:

SubhanAllah, JazakAllah khayr for this is. I read about it in the Desi Times

WassalamuAlaykum

With the name of Allaha, the Most Merciful, Most Gracious, Most Great, Helper of the weak.

What can we do for our sister? I don't want that my nafs uses the du'a as an excuse to sit home and do home. The best combination is work, du'a and tawakkul.

btw: Please erase the words "la'natullahi 'alayhim" As far I remember, it is haram to invoke Allah's surce upon people who are still alive. Allahu a'lam.

We need to publicicse her case as much as possible.

Also, I would add that many Muslims see dua as a passive, last resort kind of action, but really it is the most powerful weapon we have. As we know from authentic hadiths, it is the one thing that averts qadr.

So 1st we make dua, and then we do other actions e.g. create awareness of her case.

With regards to the curse, it is true that it is not liked to frequently curse. However, some situations when a person a seriously wronged/slandered a Muslim, then it is allowed. As proof of this, there is the incident of Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas (RA) who cursed a man for slandering him, and Allah (SWT) fulfilled that curse.

Narrated Jabir bin Samura: The People of Kufa complained against Sa'd to 'Umar and the latter dismissed him and appointed 'Ammar as their chief . They lodged many complaints against Sa'd and even they alleged that he did not pray properly. 'Umar sent for him and said, "O Aba Ishaq! These people claim that you do not pray properly." Abu Ishaq said, "By Allah, I used to pray with them a prayer similar to that of Allah's Apostle and I never reduced anything of it. I used to prolong the first two Rakat of 'Isha prayer and shorten the last two Rakat." 'Umar said, "O Aba Ishaq, this was what I thought about you." And then he sent one or more persons with him to Kufa so as to ask the people about him. So they went there and did not leave any mosque without asking about him. All the people praised him till they came to the mosque of the tribe of Bani 'Abs; one of the men called Usama bin Qatada with a surname of Aba Sa'da stood up and said, "As you have put us under an oath; I am bound to tell you that Sa'd never went himself with the army and never distributed (the war booty) equally and never did justice in legal verdicts." (On hearing it) Sa'd said, "I pray to Allah for three things: O Allah! If this slave of yours is a liar and got up for showing off, give him a long life, increase his poverty and put him to trials." (And so it happened). Later on when that person was asked how he was, he used to reply that he was an old man in trial as the result of Sa'd's curse. 'Abdul Malik, the sub narrator, said that he had seen him afterwards and his eyebrows were over-hanging his eyes owing to old age and he used to tease and assault the small girls in the way.

As-Salam 'alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh, my esteemed sister,

May Allah have mercy upon you, thank you for the explanation.

I don't think that the du'a is our last resort, rather we have to pray to Allah all the time, the only things which can vary is the work. We have to work and pray to Allah that He SWT makes it successful, and if we can't work, then we still do du'a.

As for the curse: My dear sister, as far as I know the curse "la'natullahi 'alayhim" is far more worse then the one mentioned. "La'natullahi 'alayhi" means, as I heard from a shaykh here: May Allah's mercy be distant from him, and may he never get out of Jahannam. And obviously, the sahabah here only prayed that Allah punished that man on this world, under the condition that he is a liar.

No matter about what we have in our hearts towards others, we still have to bu just.

May Allah help our sister Afiya, and may He SWT punish His enemies, indeed, the enemies of His sincere slave are His enemies. Allah's party is the winners party.

Abdu-l-Majeed said:

As-Salam 'alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh, my esteemed sister,

May Allah have mercy upon you, thank you for the explanation.

I don't think that the du'a is our last resort, rather we have to pray to Allah all the time, the only things which can vary is the work. We have to work and pray to Allah that He SWT makes it successful, and if we can't work, then we still do du'a.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I didn't mean that this was your opinion, rather that a lot of Muslims seem to hold the opinion that when all else fails, we make dua. I agree with your balanced view that "the best combination is work, du'a and tawakkul."

Abu Sabaya is an Arab, and well versed in fus-hah, so I'm sure he understood the implications of his words. It might well be that he used the curse as he feels that the one who has assisted in handing a Muslim over to the kuffar has negated their Islam. But I will contact the brother and get back to you insha'Allah, to get a clarification.

Ok, thank you very much, sister. Jazak'Allahu ta'ala khayran.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=muslimmatters.org&title=The+Article+Title Sr. Aafia’s bail hearing has been postponed to September 3. Please make dua’ that she be released, and please keep her and her three children in mind and your dua’s as you read this story. A new chapter in the long and painful saga of the “War on Terror” has been revealed to the public. The facts are murky, the details impossible to confirm.
While there are several possibilities, there is one that most will find almost impossible to believe. We are not ready to believe that Dr. Aafia is a star terrorist– a claim that is ironically being jointly pushed by both the US Government and Al-Qaeda. Why are these opposing sides pushing forth this nearly consistent portrait? The answer lies in each group’s malicious agenda.
On one hand, we have the US Government: a government which has some serious face-saving to do, and a million questions to answer… starting with questions about the denial of basic fundamental due-process and equal protection rights protected by the US Constitution (5th and 14th Amendment) to Dr. Aafia:
On the other hand, we have Al-Qaeda, which has its own propaganda to put forth… what better story to use to brainwash and recruit more youth than a story about a woman, who (in their concoction) is highly educated yet leaves a good life in the West to join their “jihad” against the disbelievers? In this episode, as in many others, the US government is yet again providing the terrorists with more fodder for recruitment.
And so Dr. Aafia became a pawn in this war of lies and twisted politics, and we forgot the “person” in the story– the person of Dr. Aafia– a petite, brilliant woman, a constant da’i (caller to Islam), and most tragic of all, a mother of three missing children!
There have been many other different claims surrounding Dr. Siddiqui: That she was the mysterious Grey Lady of Bagram (Prisoner 650), whose screams of pain were heard and recorded by Moazzem Baig and others; that she was a top al-Qaeda operative (does anyone else find that this label is getting a bit old?); that her life as a “normal Boston mom” was really a cover for a sensational double life that involved the diamond trade in Liberia. My cynical eyes find this more akin to the plot of the next Bourne movie than a bona fide case of terrorism.
What do we know? Or better put, what do we think we know?
–We know that she is a Pakistani-American neuroscientist, a graduate of MIT. She is NOT a neurologist or a microbiologist (!), as the lying, right-wing, Islamophobic propagandists, looking for a female “Islamic villain” (enough of male ones already available), have claimed. One such islamophobe Michelle Malkin headlined her blog post with this distortion. Just goes to show that in the rush of propaganda, truth usually becomes one of the first casualties.
–Dr. Aafia went to University of Houston for a year in 1991, before transferring to MIT. Those who knew her while she was on campus at U. Houston, talk about Dr. Afia as being always busy with some of the same things she was doing at MIT: studying hard and giving dawah to others. They also mention that she was in fact quite liberal in her views (consider this: does her graduation picture appear one of an extremist?). Her extended family is still settled in Houston, all involved in the Muslim community there. Her brother in fact was the architect for a beautiful ISGH Mosque in Houston.
–We are told that in 2001, before 9/11, Dr. Aafia was alleged to be involved in an illegal diamond trading scheme, in Africa, and in support of Al-Qaeda. What is amazing and quite eye-opening (with regards to the weakness of the prosecution’s case) is that Dr. Aafia’s location during this summer time-frame can easily be proven! And it happens to be in the United States!
But how can our law enforcement miss this?? Let’s see… didn’t the Feds arrest a Muslim convert for a terror operation in Spain because of an apparent finger-print match? The only problem was that Br. Brandon Mayfield never traveled to Spain from the US! As everyone knows, he was released and compensated. So, yes, there is something to be said for incompetence in the ranks of our federal law enforcement agencies. Or is it the desire to keep finding pawns in the “war against terrorism”? And consequently to keep alive the funding for the witch-hunt against Muslims in America? As long as you can make some headlines (the Brandon case made many), later losses in the judicial system become acceptable, as long as they remain relegated to page 14 of the papers.
Also consider who broke the diamond trade story in WSJ. None other than Douglas Farah, who of course has no conflict of interest other than a book he is trying to sell on this very subject (”Blood from Stones“). Douglas Farah (no relation to the notorious islamophobe Joseph Farah), seems to be a “jihadi-hunter” like his friend Steve Emerson. Interestingly, they plan, but Allah is the best planner. As it turns out, this story may actually help Dr. Aafia in her case:
–She disappeared sometime in spring 2003, about a month after the arrest of terrorism suspect, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed:
–She is the mother of three children, who also mysteriously disappeared with her in 2003, and still no one knows where they are for the last 5 years. What section of the US laws allow the government to engage in such extraordinary, unjust action? There is no graver injustice that the US government has engaged in than to rip a mother of her children. Every fair-minded human should demand that the government provide information on the whereabouts of the children, to make sure they are safe, and being raised as Muslims. Are the children being held as pawns in this game? Will the government use the children as bargaining chips in order to blackmail Dr. Aafia into self-incriminating testimony? I am not a conspiracy-theorist, never was. But until her children are produced, safe and sound, these questions are indeed completely fair and applicable.
–Who arrested her? No one knows for sure. However, there is little doubt that the FBI was involved, one way or the other, since the FBI had issued a “seeking information” on her. Since Pakistan is still a relatively sovereign nation (though this can be fairly debated), FBI probably worked with Pakistan’s security agencies to nab her. Like many cases of extraordinary renditions (illegal by all international laws) and “torture-for-hire” that the US government has engaged in, it is also likely that Dr. Aafia was kept in Pakistan and/or Afghanistan in order to allow a free-hand for all sorts of torture techniques that would make look water-boarding look meek!
–On July 17 of this year, she was allegedly “discovered” and detained by Afghan police in an encounter that involved a gunfight with American soldiers (oddly, despite the accusation that she was wielding a high-tech weapon, she was the only one who ended up severely wounded!). Her attorney ridicules this assertion in this press conference.
–Dr. Aafia’s medical condition is woeful. Who will answer for the wounds that she received, and even if somehow the wounds are justified as part of some imaginary “firefight”, then who will answer for her bungled medical treatment? Is this the America that we want to project? A nation that treats its prisoners like animals or worse? Here is a list of her miserable medical condition that we KNOW of, only Allah knows what else she suffered, physically and psychologically:

• one of her kidneys had been removed while in captivity;
• her teeth had been removed;
• her nose had been broken, and improperly reset;
  that her recent gun-shot wound had been incompetently dressed, was oozing blood, leaving her clothes soaked with blood

And shame on the government prosecution for trying to prevent her from seen by a doctor. Christopher LaVigne, one of the Prosecutors, justified withholding medical care because she was a “high-security risk”. High-risk?? What was the prosecution so afraid of? That a frail, wheel-chair ridden, small woman would get away from their agents? Are these agents men or little children that Dr. Aafia will be able to overpower? Fortunately, the prosecution was ordered to make sure she was seen by a doctor within 24 hours by Judge Robert Pitman.
–There have been claims of rape by Dr. Siddiqui’s family. Some of it seems to be corroborated by other prisoners at Gauntanomo, such as Moazzam Baig.
What’s true? What’s not? What really happened to Dr. Aafia Siddiqui? Only Allah knows, though based on the history of our government’s prosecution against Muslims, I am much more inclined to believe Dr. Siddiqui’s side.
People have been asking us to comment on the case, on the outrage of it all. The oppression, the injustice, the lies and the torture… and yet, at this point, I wonder - what CAN we say, besides the obvious? That we know already what kind of people are involved in the governments and intelligence agencies? That the Muslim Ummah is being oppressed every day, that our people are being tortured, that things are happening which we have no control over? That we cannot trust what we see or hear or read, because most of it is being spoon-fed to us while we are oblivious to our own blindness?
But at the same time, we cannot give up hope. We cannot remain quiet. Silence is the first step towards comprehensive defeat. We must speak for the weak. We must stand up for the truth. We must not, and cannot forget the innocent Muslim victims of the worldwide misconduct in the bogus “war against terror.”
For sure, there is blame to go around. For sure, we cannot remove responsibility from the terrorists among us, who have hijacked Islam in the name of their perverted ideology (such as Al-Qaeda and all other terrorist cells that target innocent civilians). But two wrongs never make a right. If our government speaks of justice and human rights, then it needs to SHOW us that those rights apply to everyone, INCLUDING Muslims. If this is not a war against Islam, as our government repeatedly reminds us, then we need to stop taking Muslim civilians as combatants.
So, can we do anything? Yes. Each one of us can do our little part. We can write or cross-post stories/posts about Dr. Aafia on our individual blogs (so that the search engines pick up “our” side of the story, and not Michelle Malkin’s lies!). We can e-mail others about it.
Another effective means is with a letter to the editor. There is little chance of success with major nationwide newspapers, but local papers always provide a golden opportunity for publishing your viewpoint. Remember these tips when writing a letter to the editor:

• Make it relevant, and mention why it is important for the paper to publish your letter.
• Make it timely. This story is not dated yet. But it may in a month or so. So write today!
• Address the editors. Write as if you’re talking to the editor of the newspaper.
• Stay on point. One topic per letter is best. And do not feel that you have to cover all aspects of that in a few short sentences. Rather, concentrate on a few powerful points.
• Keep it short. There is a rough limit of 250 words for letters. Letters that can make their point in 100 words or less have a better- than-average chance of getting printed. Longer letters are less likely to be published and, if selected, will almost definitely be edited. Don’t let the letters editor remove or dilute your most important points.
• Use factual information and refer to source.
• Of course, don’t forget to put your name, telephone and whatever other requirements for the specific newspaper.

Finally, you can always make dua’ (but don’t stop at it). If indeed, as we believe, that Dr. Aafia is an innocent victim in a much bigger game, then may Allah release her and reunite her with her family soon inshallah. And help all other innocent Muslim prisoners.
Resources:

• Join “Dr. Afia Siddiqui - Prisoner 650” on Facebook
• Sign petition online “Appeal for the Release of Dr. Afia Siddiqui & Her 3 Children”

See Also:

• The Aafia Siddiqui I saw by Abu Sabaya (on MM) [MM will be publishing this tomorrow]
• Hoover, the FBI, and Aafia Siddiqui (Yvonne Ridley)
• Who’s Afraid of Aafia Siddiqui? (Boston Magazine)
• Attorney Press-Conference on YouTube
• On Christian Science Monitor
• Cage Prisoners Alert
• BBC News Report
• Dr. Aafia Siddiqui: A ‘Missing Person’ With A Name (On “Pakistaniat” Blog)
• On NPR
• On FreeDetainees.org

The door on the front left side of the courtroom was slowly opened to reveal a frail, limp, exhausted woman who could barely hold her own head up straight in a pale blue wheelchair. She was dressed in a Guantanamo-style orange prison uniform, and her frail head was wrapped in a white hijab that was pulled down to cover her bone-thin arms (the prison uniform is shortsleeved).

Click to expand...

I got a better understanding of why she was so sad and desperate when her lawyer began listing details of her condition:

* She now has brain damage from her time in US custody
* One of her kidneys was removed while in US custody
* She is unable to digest her food since part of her intestines was removed during surgery while in US custody
* She has layers and layers of sewed up skin from the surgery for the gunshot wound
* She has a large surgical scar from her chest area all the way down to her torso

With all of this, she had not been visited by a single doctor the entire time of her incarceration in the US despite being in constant incredible abdominal pain following her sloppy surgery in Afghanistan - pain for which she was being given nothing more than Ibuprofen! Ibuprofen is purchased over the counter to treat headaches!

Click to expand...

When the hearing was over, one scholarly statement stuck in my mind, and it is where Ibn al-Qayyim said that a person rises in his closeness to Allah until: '...there remains only one obstacle from which the enemy calls him from, and this is an obstacle that he must face. If anyone were to be saved from this obstacle, it would have been the Messengers and Prophets of Allah, and the noblest of His Creation. This is the obstacle of Satan unleashing his troops upon the believer with various types of harm: by way of the hand, the tongue, and the heart. This occurs in accordance with the degree of goodness that exists within the believer. So, the higher he is in degree, the more the enemy unleashes his troops and helps them against him, and overwhelms him with his followers and allies in various ways. There is no way around this obstacle, because the firmer he is in calling to Allah and fulfilling His commands, the more the enemy becomes intent upon deceiving him with foolish people. So, he has essentially put on his body armor in this obstacle, and has taken it upon himself to confront the enemy for Allah's Sake and in His Name, and his worship in doing so is the worship of the best of worshippers.'

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Despite Aafia's apparent physical weakness and frailty, there was a certain 'izzah (honor) and strength that I felt emanating from her the entire time. Everything from the way she forcefully shook her hand at the judge when the prosecutor would lie, to how she was keen to wear her hijab on top of her prison garments despite horrible circumstances that would make hijab the last thing on most people's minds, to the number of FBI agents, US Marshals, reporters, officials, etc. who were all stuffed in this small room to observe this frail, weak, short, quiet, female 'security risk' - everything pointed to the conclusion that the only thing all of these people were afraid of was the strength of this sister's iman.

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What can I say...?

I will not close by mentioning the obligation of helping to free Muslim prisoners. I will not mention how al-Mu'tasim razed an entire city to the ground to rescue a single Muslim woman. I will not go back to the days of Salah ad-Din or 'Umar bin 'Abd al-'Aziz, who rescued Muslim prisoners in the tens of thousands. I cannot be greedy enough to mention these things at this point because what is even sadder than what is happening to Aafia Siddiqui is how few the Muslims were who even bothered to show up to her hearing in a city of around half a million Muslims (not counting the surrounding areas), and that not a single Muslim organization in the United States has taken up the sister's cause or even spoken a word in her defense, and as Ibn al-Qayyim said: 'If ghayrah (protective jealousy) leaves a person’s heart, his faith will follow it.'

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I think those above sums up pretty much everything. May Allah ease her burden and give her justice soon inshallah and punish the oppressors severely.

Ameen!http://www.al-istiqamah.com/IF/Aafia1.htm

:'( wat and absolutely heartbreaking story. who is this michelle malkin ?hew her blog is absolutely disgusting :raging::raging::raging:

To: Un Human Rights, European Court of Human Rights, Amnesty International USA, Islamic Human Rights Commission

Please sign the Petition in support of Dr Afia and forward it to as many ppl as u can :


http://www.petitiononline.com/af258633/petition.html


Thanks & best Regards,

5357 Signatures Total

come on.. we have triple as many members here on board alone..

fatima_01 said:

:'( wat and absolutely heartbreaking story. who is this michelle malkin ?hew her blog is absolutely disgusting :raging::raging::raging:

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Insha-ALAH
Thank you for bringing this to my attention;
I shall prey for our sister

MARTYR
Proud Islamic Revert

I didn’t hear of this till today. I am not the least bit surprised by what these people continue to do to millions of innocent Muslims around the world. Their hatred for us just becomes crystal clearer to me day by day, with every cruel action they carry out against Muslims around the world, whether it is men, women, or even children. Their despicable satanic schemes never change, deception is their main tool and every word they speak is a spit of lies. May they sink in their lies and deceptions.

We at least know about sister Siddiqui, but Walahi there are other Muslim brothers and sisters who are imprisoned in dark dungeons around the world, they are nameless and faceless.

Who could imprison the heart of a Muslim that is filled with the Light of Allah?

Their bodies might be imprisoned in dark dungeons, but you could see light illuminating from the dark dungeons of those whose hearts are filled with the Light of Allah. The Light of Allah rests in their hearts, while they are imprisoned in the dark dungeons of the kufrs. They are light surrounded by darkness.

May Allah increase their faith, strengthen their hearts and comfort their souls.

amani said:

There is much more to say about how passionate this sister was for Islam. However, the above gives you an idea of what she was like, and should hopefully serve as an inspiration for brothers before sisters to become active in serving Islam through whatever means are available. Remember that she was doing all of this while being a mother and a PhD student, and most of us do much less despite having much more free time.

So, having this image of Aafia in my mind, I was taken aback at what I saw when she was brought into court for what should have been her bail hearing. The door on the front left side of the courtroom was slowly opened to reveal a frail, limp, exhausted woman who could barely hold her own head up straight in a pale blue wheelchair. She was dressed in a Guantanamo-style orange prison uniform, and her frail head was wrapped in a white hijab that was pulled down to cover her bone-thin arms (the prison uniform is shortsleeved). Her lawyers quickly sat around her, and the hearing began.

The head prosecutor, assistant US attorney Christopher LaVigne, walked in with a group of three or four FBI agents, one of whom was a female who looked Pakistani (لعنة الله عليهم). The defense began by announcing that the bail hearing was to be postponed because of Aafia's medical condition. Essentially, Aafia's lawyers reasoned that there was no point of her being out on bail if she was near death. So, they demanded that she be allowed a doctor's visit before anything else. LaVigne got up and objected, saying that Aafia was a risk to the security of the United States. The judge didn't seem to buy that, and the prosecutor continued arguing that "this is a woman who attempted to blast her way out of captivity." As soon as this was said, I looked over and noticed Aafia shaking her head in desperation and sadness, as if she felt that the whole world was against her. By the way, Aafia was so small and weak that I could barely see her from behind the wheelchair. All I could see was her head slumped over to the left and wrapped in the hijab, and her right arm sticking out.

I got a better understanding of why she was so sad and desperate when her lawyer began listing details of her condition:

* She now has brain damage from her time in US custody
* One of her kidneys was removed while in US custody
* She is unable to digest her food since part of her intestines was removed during surgery while in US custody
* She has layers and layers of sewed up skin from the surgery for the gunshot wound
* She has a large surgical scar from her chest area all the way down to her torso

With all of this, she had not been visited by a single doctor the entire time of her incarceration in the US despite being in constant incredible abdominal pain following her sloppy surgery in Afghanistan - pain for which she was being given nothing more than Ibuprofen! Ibuprofen is purchased over the counter to treat headaches!

With all of this, the prosecutor had the audacity and shamelessness to try to prevent her from being seen by a doctor due to her being a "security risk." When he was pressed by the judge as to why Aafia was sitting all this time in a NYC prison without basic medical care, the government attorney stuttered, said that it was "a complicated situation," and capped it with the expected cheap shot that "it was her decision as she refused to by seen by a male doctor." As soon as the prosecutor said that last bit, I saw Aafia's thin arm shoot up and shake back and forth to the judge (as if to say 'No! He’s lying!'). I felt so sorry for her, as she was obviously quite frustrated at the lies being spilled out before her very eyes. Her lawyer then put her hand on her arm and began stroking it to comfort her and calm her down.

When the hearing was over, one scholarly statement stuck in my mind, and it is where Ibn al-Qayyim said that a person rises in his closeness to Allah until: "...there remains only one obstacle from which the enemy calls him from, and this is an obstacle that he must face. If anyone were to be saved from this obstacle, it would have been the Messengers and Prophets of Allah, and the noblest of His Creation. This is the obstacle of Satan unleashing his troops upon the believer with various types of harm: by way of the hand, the tongue, and the heart. This occurs in accordance with the degree of goodness that exists within the believer. So, the higher he is in degree, the more the enemy unleashes his troops and helps them against him, and overwhelms him with his followers and allies in various ways. There is no way around this obstacle, because the firmer he is in calling to Allah and fulfilling His commands, the more the enemy becomes intent upon deceiving him with foolish people. So, he has essentially put on his body armor in this obstacle, and has taken it upon himself to confront the enemy for Allah's Sake and in His Name, and his worship in doing so is the worship of the best of worshippers."

And this was absolutely clear that day when looking at the scene in the court. Despite Aafia's apparent physical weakness and frailty, there was a certain 'izzah (honor) and strength that I felt emanating from her the entire time. Everything from the way she forcefully shook her hand at the judge when the prosecutor would lie, to how she was keen to wear her hijab on top of her prison garments despite horrible circumstances that would make hijab the last thing on most people's minds, to the number of FBI agents, US Marshals, reporters, officials, etc. who were all stuffed in this small room to observe this frail, weak, short, quiet, female "security risk" - everything pointed to the conclusion that the only thing all of these people were afraid of was the strength of this sister's iman.

This is the situation of our dear sister, a Muslim woman in captivity…

What can I say...?

I will not close by mentioning the obligation of helping to free Muslim prisoners. I will not mention how al-Mu'tasim razed an entire city to the ground to rescue a single Muslim woman. I will not go back to the days of Salah ad-Din or 'Umar bin 'Abd al-'Aziz, who rescued Muslim prisoners in the tens of thousands. I cannot be greedy enough to mention these things at this point because what is even sadder than what is happening to Aafia Siddiqui is how few the Muslims were who even bothered to show up to her hearing in a city of around half a million Muslims (not counting the surrounding areas), and that not a single Muslim organization in the United States has taken up the sister's cause or even spoken a word in her defense, and as Ibn al-Qayyim said: "If ghayrah (protective jealousy) leaves a person’s heart, his faith will follow it."

Unfortunately, in a time where most of us are following Din al-A'rab, it seems that the best person to teach us a lesson in how to help Aafia Siddiqui would have been Aafia herself.


و الله المستعان

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Well spoken,

Her story brings tears to my eyes

Martyr

Karin Friedemann
Monday, September 29, 2008
British MP intervenes for Aafia Siddique
http://karinfriedemann.blogspot.com/



Quite by chance I had the fortune of meeting Lord Ahmed Nazir, the British Member of Parliament, at the Friday prayer. He was passing through Boston on his way to New York, where he planned to speak to Aafia Siddique's lawyer and to put some pressure on the US authorities to allow the sister to be hospitalized and treated for her gunshot wound as well as severe post-traumatic stress. In a phone conversation the next day, the good man shared with me how he came to know about her tragic fate.

This summer, probably during their fact-finding mission to Darfur reported earlier in my blog, the famed reporter Yvonne Ridley approached Lord Nazir to ask if he could find out anything about the legendary mystery of the "Grey Lady of Bagram."

When Pakistani detainee Moazzem Begg was released without charge, he reported to the media that he still felt haunted by a woman's sobbing cries and hysterical screams coming from Cell #650 at the US-run torture den in Afghanistan. The Saudis who escaped from Bagram during the prison break-out, in which the Taliban blew up the prison lobby and liberated hundreds of prisoners who were being held without trial by the Americans, also reported that they had seen her.

Lord Nazir prepared some questions for the UK government, inquiring whether the British intelligence service was involved in the interrogation of this woman, whether they were they aware of abuse, and if this lady was Dr. Aafia Siddique, the MIT and Brandeis-educated neuroscientist who mysteriously disappeared in Pakistan in March 2003 along with her 6 month old baby, and children aged 5 and 6?

Lord Nazir wrote a similar letter to the US ambassador in the UK, who passed it along to the British embassy in Kabul.

Pakistani politician Imran Khan held a press conference in Islamabad rallying public support for the "Grey Lady of Bagram." The Pakistani government denied any knowledge of Prisoner 650 or Aafia. The UK denied having custody of her and said she was in the hands of the US. The US claimed that Prisoner 650 was "a different woman," who had been released in 2005 to her (unnamed) country of origin.

Yet that same day this past July, when Kabul received the letter from Lord Nazir, Aafia Siddique was strangely reportedly arrested wandering around in Afghanistan, "as if she were on bloody holiday," according to Lord Nazir, who rejects the bogus claim that she was carrying chemical, biological and radioactive weapons information as well as jars of chemicals in her purse. Siddique has no military expertise. Her primary focus of study was children's cognitive development.

Human Rights Watch attorney, Carol Mariner states: "US federal prosecutors allege that the day after her arrest, while still in Afghan custody, she grabbed a gun from the floor and fired it at a team of US soldiers and federal intelligence agents who were visiting the Afghan police compound where she was being held.

Lord Nazir however informed me that according to witnesses, the US had told the Afghan authorities to hand Siddique over and the Afghan police were refusing. As they were negotiating, Siddique began to walk towards the US soldiers, complaining that the Afghan police were abusing her. One of the American soldiers panicked as she was walking toward them and shot the petite, unarmed woman in the stomach.

According to a cageprisoners.com report by Abu Sabaya, Siddique has not received adequate medical treatment for her bullet wound, other than a botched bullet-removal surgery under US custody, in which one of her kidneys and part of her intestine were removed, rendering her unable to properly digest food, and leaving her entire torso covered with layers of scar tissue. She was brought, emaciated and it terrible condition, to trial in New York in a wheelchair in September 2008, while doubled over in pain. Her condition has since worsened significantly. Her trial was then postponed indefinitely a couple weeks ago under the excuse that she had refused the body cavity strip search required for her to leave her cell.

After much international media outcry, Aafia's American-born son was located in an Afghan prison and was handed over to his loving relatives in Pakistan, while Siddique was transferred to a Federal Prison in New York. No one knows what happened to her young daughter or her baby. There is a rumor that one of them was killed.

Aafia's lawyers believe that she has spent the last five years as a secret captive of Pakistani or American authorities. According to Joanne Mariner, an attorney with Human Rights Watch in New York, the Pakistani papers reported that she had been "picked up in Karachi by an intelligence agency" and handed over to US authorities in 2003.

Preceding her abduction on March 18, 2003, the FBI had issued an alert requesting information about her. Siddiqui was then living in Pakistan, having completed her studies in the US. She had been very active in the Muslim Students' Association, helping to manage a religious information (daw'ah) table in the MIT student center, teaching Quran to recent converts to Islam, and collecting winter boots to send to Bosnia.

A 2004 article from Boston Magazine quotes her as having stated: "Imagine our humble, but sincere daw'ah effort turning into a major daw'ah movement in this country! Just imagine it! And us, reaping the reward of everyone who accepts Islam through this movement, through years to come. Think and plan big. May Allah give this strength and sincerity to us so that our humble effort continue, and expands until America becomes a Muslim land."

It is very possible that Boston neocons pinpointed this pious and idealistic student for neutralization. It was proven in a 2007 court case that Boston Jewish organizations had conspired to deliberately character assassinate the founders of the Roxbury Mosque as "terror supporters," by coordinating with the Israeli ambassador a bogus legal and media campaign with the aim of causing a scandal that they hoped would result in shutting down the multi-million dollar mosque building project. In this case, the David Project, the AJC and others hired Steve Emerson and Rita Katz, professional anti-Islam propagandists with links to the neocon establishment, to come up with a list of incriminating sounding accusations and suspicious links that would be used to defame a list of Muslims in the media. Although the accusations were baseless, the mysteriously well-funded organizations created a hostile and malicious media campaign with press releases full of innuendo released by the David Project front group, "Christians and Jews United for Israel."

It is more than highly probable that this or a related group of Boston neocons with links to William Kristol in DC had conspired against Siddique and passed along similarly faked evidence to the FBI. Had she been in the US, probably after a brief investigation, the FBI would have found nothing and left her alone, but because Pakistan was under heavy pressure to produce terrorists for the US to imprison, and because US Constitutional protections do not apply in Pakistan, the young woman was abducted while she was on the way to the train station.

Although all the evidence the FBI have on her and her husband seem to be some debit card donations to Islamic charities, the US government later alleged that Siddiqui was linked to al Qaeda. Both Siddique and her husband, Ali 'Abd al-'Aziz Ali (also known as Ammar al-Baluchi), disappeared from Karachi around March 28, 2003.

Siddique's husband was finally located in September 2006 in Guantanamo, where he had been transferred from CIA custody. He is currently on trial for allegedly "sending money to suicide squads," according to the Miami Herald. Prosecutors are charging him, along with his uncle Khalid Sheik Mohammed, whom they refer to as "Al-Qaeda Kingpin," and "9/11 Mastermind," of conspiring with Osama bin Laden to plan and to finance the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.

This is a very curious charge, given that the FBI has publicly admitted that they have no evidence connecting Osama bin Laden to 9/11, information which is freely available on the FBI website.

The men were found to have been secretly held for three years by the CIA after having been arrested by Pakistani intelligence who rounded up dozens of "suspects" in Karachi, including people who turned out to be tourists, in order to collect the head bounty fee for America's "War on Terror."

Baluchi, a computer engineer, who speaks near-perfect English has refused to accept legal representation and has chosen to represent himself in the military tribunal.

The Miami Herald quoted him as saying, ''I am in the wrong court. I am not a criminal. My case is political. Even though the government tortured me free of charge for all these years, I cannot accept lawyers under these circumstances.''

The ACLU, whose lawyers were poised to argue on his behalf, blamed Pentagon regulations for not being allowed a chance to develop a trust relationship with the potential client, who had been tortured for five years and had unsurprisingly come to mistrust all Americans.

His uncle, who confessed to planning 9/11 "from A to Z" while he was being waterboarded, in addition to admitting to a long list of other terrorist acts, including the London train bombing of 2005, which he could not have possibly committed, since he was in Guantanamo at the time of its occurrence, rejected his American lawyer on religious grounds, claiming that the US Constitution "allows for same sexual marriage."

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other organizations included Siddique in a 2007 list of disappeared persons that were believed to have been in CIA custody.

Lord Nazir asked the US authorities for permission to see her and the US Justice Department said they would facilitate a visit. However, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has repeatedly tried to obstruct his access. Nazir has since decided it would not be useful for him to visit Siddique anyway, as she has reportedly gone mad. She is locked in solitary confinement in New York's Metropolitan Detention Center and can only speak to her lawyer through the slot for her meal tray. She is in tremendous physical agony and speaks only of waiting for God to take her and her children. She apparently believes her young children are in there with her, although this is believed to be the tragic maternal hallucinations of an emotionally destroyed human being, whose children had been stolen out of her arms by armed soldiers. According to one media report, she refused her dinner asked the prison guard to give the food to her son instead of her.

Siddique's lawyer feels that under the present circumstances, she is not fit to stand trial, and she needs to be moved immediately to a prison hospital for treatment of her gunshot wound as well as to get some psychological help.

Inexplicably, the Federal authorities are obstructing her access to medical treatment. The US government is pressuring the judge, demanding that she remain alone in her cell. The American ambassador N.W. Peterson absurdly objected to Siddique receiving medical treatment on grounds that she is a "security threat."

It is fairly clear to the author that the US wants her to die, to prevent her from testifying about her prison experience, or else in order to inflame the Pakistani public into rioting against the US.

Pakistan is passionately demanding Aafia Siddique's re-patriation. She has huge public support.

Benazir Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari, the recently elected President of Pakistan, said in a speech, "Aafia Siddique is my sister."

Lord Ahmed will continue to work with the US Justice Department, Homeland Security, and other intelligence agencies, Siddique's lawyers and the Prosecution to help facilitate family and doctor visits for her, and to bring about Siddique's return to Pakistan.

Aafia's brother in Texas has since been offered access to see her.

Hoover, the FBI, and Aafia Siddiqui
Written by Yvonne Ridley
http://yvonneridley.org/yvonne-ridle...-siddiqui.htmlThe FBI lost much of its credibility when its chief J. Edgar Hoover was revealed to be a transvestite who preferred to be called Mary.

Hoover, probably the most powerful men in America some say even more powerful then the presidents he served under, was the originator of dirty tricks campaign and kept a lot of dirt on other people in his files.

The only players who were immune to Hoover's secret files were those who had secrets of their own about his personal life - namely, the Mafia. Mafia bosses obtained information about Hoover's sex life and used it for decades to keep the FBI at bay. Without this, the Mafia as we know it might never have gained its hold in America.

In May of 1972, Hoover - approaching his fifty-five-year anniversary with the Justice Department - boasted that the FBI remained the organization that he built upon his own principles and standards - of course now we know exactly what standards Hoover aka Mary had.

The FBI never really recovered its power or prestige once Hoover was ousted as a cross dresser.

There was more scandal to follow when Acting Director L. Patrick Gray was forced to resign after being caught up in the Watergate drama which brought down President Richard Nixon aka Tricky Dicky.

The FBI is supposed to be an institute based around freedom and democracy; instead it has become a factory from which lies and deceit are manufactured.

The reason for this brief history lesson into the FBI will now become apparent.

You see it is quite obvious that from cross dressers, liars and fraudsters, the FBI has now moved into the realms of fantasy land with the news that Dr. Aafia Siddique has "conveniently" been found outside a governor's office in Afghanistan with her 12 year old son ... FIVE years after her disappearance in Karachi.

According to the FBI she was in possession of "numerous documents describing the creation of explosives, as well as excerpts from the Anarchist's Arsenal, descriptions of various landmarks in the United States, including in New York City" - you know, all the regular stuff a female terrorist would carry in her handbag!

The fantasists who concocted this story may as well have put Dr. Siddique in Hoover's old red dress while they were on with it.

What we do know is that she has been shot at and injured. She was extradited to New York last night (Monday) and is being held in a prison in Manhatten down the road from the nightclub where Hoover used to pose as Mary.

She faces charges of attempted murder and assault of a US officer.

Does the FBI really think we are all that stupid and gullible?

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui - who had been sought by the FBI for several years regarding terrorism according to their website - is accused of shooting at two FBI special agents, a US Army warrant officer, an Army captain and military interpreters who unknowingly entered a room where she was being held unsecured.

She fired two shots, but hit no one, officials said. The warrant officer returned fire with a pistol, shooting Siddiqui at least once. She struggled with the officers before she lost consciousness, said officials, adding that she received medical attention.

The day before the shootings, Afghan police had arrested Siddiqui outside the Ghazni governor's compound after finding bomb-making instructions, excerpts from the "Anarchist's Arsenal," papers with descriptions of US landmarks and substances sealed 20 in bottles and glass jars.

This all happened two weeks after I had given a press conference in Islamabad calling on the US to handover Prisoner 650 - The Grey lady of Bagram.

Coincidence? May be - but if the FBI think that we are going to buy the bovine scatterings they have just released to the US media they really do live in La La Land.

Let's look at the cold hard fact of the case.

Dr Siddiqui, 36, is an American-educated neuroscientist. Since 2003, Siddiqui's whereabouts have been the source of much speculation. According to Amnesty International, Siddiqui and her three small children were reported apprehended in Karachi, Pakistan, in March 2003 after the FBI issued at alert requesting information about her location earlier that month.

Several reports indicated Siddiqui was in US custody after her arrest in Karachi. But in May 2004 then-Attorney General Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller identified Siddiqui among several sought-after al Qaeda members.

Human rights group and a lawyer for Ms. Siddiqui, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, say they believe that she has been secretly detained since 2003, for much of that time at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

"We believe Aafia has been in custody ever since she disappeared," Ms. Sharp said in a telephone interview yesterday, "and we're not willing to believe that the discovery of Aafia in Afghanistan is coincidence."

American military and intelligence officials said that Ms. Siddiqui was in Pakistan for most of the past five years until she resurfaced last month and was captured by the Afghans.

She and her 12-year-old son were arrested in Ghazni, Afghanistan, on July 17. The American officials accused Ms Siddiqui trying to bomb the residence of Ghazni's provincial governor.

Someone who also does not buy this nonsense is Asim Qureshi, Senior Researcher for the British-based international human rights organization Cage prisoners has issued the following statement, "There are many questions that the FBI and the Pakistani government need to answer in light of this admission. Why have the FBI continued to pretend to be seeking her while all the while knowing of her detention in Afghanistan? Is Aafia indeed Prisoner 650 whose screams were heard by former Bagram prisoners?

"Aafia Siddiqui is a woman who has been plagued by a number of problems in her life, none of which have anything to do with involvement with al-Qaeda. During the years the US claim she was working as an operative for the organization she was in fact the victim of domestic violence at the hands of an abusive husband. Community members in Boston declare that she was incapable of any violence, let alone being involved with a terrorist group.

"Whilst we welcome this disclosure reform the FBI, it has only come after mounting international pressure, and five years of detention and abuse. Siddiqui's case represents the problem of disappearances in Pakistan in the most tragic way. The acceptance by the FBI that Siddiqui has been in custody in Afghanistan raises important questions which must be answered by the Pakistani and US governments. Siddiqui must be returned to Pakistan in order to faces charges for any crime she may have committed or released along with her children."

Cage prisoners have led 20th campaign for Aafia Siddiqui for the past three years. Since her disappearance in March 2003 in Karachi, along with her three young children, the FBI has continually denied reports of her detention and that she was in their custody.

I am proud to be a patron of Cage Prisoners. Less than two weeks before this fiasco emerged, I traveled to Pakistan with Cage prisoners Director, Saghir Hussain, to launch their report, Devoid of the Rule of the Law, at a press conference organized by Imran Khan.

The press conference sparked an international storm of outrage, when I asked my colleagues in the Pakistan media to put pressure on the US to identify Prisoner 650 and the release of Aafia Siddiqui.

I personally spoke with Lt. Col. Mark Wright at the US Pentagon who denied all knowledge of Prisoner 650 or Dr Aafia Siddique.

Now I do not believe for one minute Lt. Col. Wright was lying - in fact I did suggest to him that the people he was speaking to in Afghanistan (the FBI) might be lying to him. I did ask him to call me back when he had the facts.

Perhaps Lt. Col. Wright you might want to make that call now and tell me the truth about Dr. Siddique and Prisoner 650 ... but whatever you do mate, do not get your facts from the FBI which stands for Fantasy Brigade International ... and that's just the polite version.