Fact Sheet :: Dr.

Afia Siddiqui 1

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui

Background:
 Dr. Aafia earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from MIT and earned her doctorate from
Brandeis University.
 Her doctoral thesis was “Learning through Imitation” in which she included her research on
improving learning techniques for children.
 She was totally dedicated to her children and her academic studies revolved around how
children learn.
 Unfortunately, Dr. Aafia became a victim of domestic violence during her marriage.
 In 2002, Dr. Aafia’s husband moved the family to Pakistan and soon divorced her while she
was pregnant with the couple’s third child. He remarried within weeks of giving her the
divorce.
 Dr. Aafia is now 38 years old, a mother of three children (2 are US citizens), divorced, and is a
Pakistani citizen.

Circumstances Surrounding the Case:

Briefly, here are some of the basic circumstances of Dr. Aafia’s case:
 In March 2003, Dr. Aafia and her three children, Ahmad (boy), six years old and an American
citizen, Maryum (girl), four years old and also an American citizen, and Suleman (boy), six
months old, kidnapped by unknown authorities in Karachi, Pakistan.
 On March 31, 2003 it was reported by the Pakistani media that Dr. Aafia had been arrested
and turned over to representatives of the United States. In early April, this was confirmed on
NBC Nightly News, among other media outlets.
 There was communication to the mother of Dr. Aafia from purported “agencies” that the
family members should be quiet if they want to see Aafia returned alive.
 By the year 2008, many believed that after five years of being disappeared Dr. Aafia and her
three children were most likely dead.
 Then, in July of 2008, the same month Dr. Aafia “appeared” in Ghazni, two events occurred:
o British human-rights reporter, Yvonne Ridley and former Bagram detainee and
British citizen, Moazem Begg, publicly spoke about a woman in Bagram screaming, a
woman whom they named the “Grey Lady of Bagram”
o A petition for habeas corpus was filed with the Pakistan High Court in Islamabad
requesting that the court order the Pakistani government to free Dr. Aafia or to
even admit that they were then detaining her.
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What Supporters and Family Believe?:

This is what the family and many other supporters in the US and in Pakistan believe:
 That Dr. Aafia was (and is) an innocent person who was abducted for money or based on false
allegations or false conclusions derived from an unknown source.
 That, unfortunately, all evidence required for her defense and establishing legal proof of her
detention would require full cooperation by the U.S. and Pakistani governments, and
intelligence agencies, a cooperation that seems impossible.
 That documents incriminating Dr. Aafia are either false documents or produced under torture
or threat of harm to her children.
 That the Afghan police were looking for Dr. Aafia and her son based on a description given by
an anonymous tip on the day she was detained in Ghazni.
 That had Dr. Aafia and her son been shot on sight on suspicion of being suicide bombers, this
would have led to a convenient closure of the case of Aafia Siddiqui at a time when a petition
for habeas corpus was pending in the High Court of Pakistan in Islamabad. Note that this court
had been asked to order then-President Musharraf and the Pakistani government (which
would include anyone working with them) to release her or to reveal her whereabouts.
 That Dr. Aafia, who spoke no local language in Ghazni, was dressed so conspicuously in a
manner to be easily identified and shot on sight as a (falsely-accused) suicide bomber as a part
of someone else’s plan.
 The forensic and scientific evidence presented during the trial in New York proved that Dr.
Aafia could not have committed the crimes for which she was charged, still the jury
disregarded the evidence and chose to agree with the prosecution due to fear and prejudice.

What Dr. Aafia’s detractors want?:

 We are asked to believe that Dr. Aafia, a respectable Pakistani woman in all ways, is now the
first and only female terrorist from Pakistan; was voluntarily hiding under cover with three
children acting as a terror field operative while at the same time leaving her family to believe
for five years that she and her three children were dead.
 We are asked to believe that Dr. Aafia arranged this just after her father died, after finding out
her marriage was disintegrating, and after leaving her widowed mother alone in Pakistan. It is
absolutely not plausible and does not even fit the traditional profile by law enforcement of
female or male terrorists from that part of the world.

Current Situation:
 In February, 2010, Dr. Aafia was tried and convicted in a US Federal court on charges of
attempted murder and assaulting US servicemen in Ghazni, Afghanistan. The official charges
against Dr. Aafia were that she assaulted U.S. soldiers in Ghazni, Afghanistan, with one of the
servicemen’s own rifles, while she was in their custody, waiting to be interrogated by them.
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No US personnel were hurt but Dr. Aafia was shot and suffered serious injuries including brain
damage. Dr Aafia categorically denies these charges.
 There were NO terrorism charges against Dr. Aafia.
 According to several legal observers, the trial of Dr. Aafia was littered with many
inconsistencies and defects, chief among them being many rulings by the judge that strongly
favored the prosecution and prejudiced the case against the defense. These ranged from
allowing much hearsay evidence and jury instructions that favored the prosecution. In
addition, Dr. Aafia was not represented by lawyers of her choosing and faced constant
innuendos of terrorism when she was not charged with any such offense.
 As a result of Judge Richard Berman’s framing of the case in a negative light, Dr Aafia was
convicted despite ALL physical and forensic evidence that showed that she could not have
committed the acts she was charged with.
 Dr. Aafia remains imprisoned, now at the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in
Brooklyn, New York where she is kept in solitary confinement in the Special housing unit (SHU)
which is the most severe confinement category. She is not allowed communication with
anyone she trusts, including family members.
 She is expected to be sentenced to life in prison on August 16, 2010.

Dr. Aafia’s Children:

 Dr. Aafia’s oldest son, Ahmed, who is a U.S. citizen by birth, was found in Ghazni, Afghanistan
after thinking he was an orphan and, in late 2008, was reunited with Dr. Aafia’s sister in
Karachi, Pakistan.
 Dr. Aafia’s daughter, Maryum, also a US citizen by birth, was mysteriously “dropped off” in
April 2010 near her aunt’s house in Karachi after being missing for 7 years. She was
traumatized and spoke only American accented English.
 Dr. Aafia’s youngest child, Suleman, a boy who would now be about seven years old, remains
missing; and is feared dead.

What Supporters and Family Seek?

 Dr. Aafia, an MIT and Brandeis laureate, is now a broken and mere shell of her former self.
Under these circumstances, family and supporters are asking the U.S. government to
repatriate Dr. Aafia back to her home in Pakistan.
 The Pakistani government has formally made this request as this matter has become a major
public issue and has support across Pakistani political and social spectrums. Supporters and
people of conscience should press government officials to get Dr. Aafia reunited with her
family as soon as possible.
 An independent, open (with full public access and disclosure) and serious investigation should
be undertaken into what happened to Dr. Aafia over the missing years and the whereabouts
of her remaining child, so that this does not happen to other innocents.
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 Dr Aafia’s family and supporters still have hope in fair minded peoples committed to mercy
and justice to raise their voices. Justice for the past, for all Dr. Aafia has suffered, is hard to
imagine.
 All that is asked for the future is for some measure of correction. If Dr. Aafia is repatriated,
perhaps she can pick up some fragments of life with her family.

Closing:
We ask people to look into this case themselves, and to do so with an open mind. There is a lot of
information out there on the Internet, and in the media. Many of the stories demonize Aafia, while
some raise her to sainthood. Aafia is neither demon nor saint. Aafia is simply an ordinary mother,
daughter and sister trapped in an extraordinary nightmare.