Pakistan: WAF Statement on Dr. Afia Siddiqui’s disappearance
Source:
WAF / The News All chapters of Women’s Action Forum (WAF) express their deepest shock and concern in the case of Dr. Afia Siddiqui, a Pakistani citizen who disappeared from Karachi in 2003 along with her 3 children, one only month old.
Her presence in the custody of US military in Afghanistan was made known suddenly and she was accused of attempting to kill a US military person. Dr. Afia Siddiqui has been whisked away to the US to be tried there. She is being detained by FBI in the USA.
The Women’s Action Forum strongly condemns Pakistani authorities for abducting and detaining a woman along with her children without producing them in a court of law; handing her over to the FBI; not informing her family and not and not providing information about her children.
WAF demands:
· Full and transparent investigation into the case of Dr. Afia Siddiqui: who arrested her? Under what law and of which country? Where was she during the last 5 years?
· That Dr. Afia Siddiqui’s family in USA be provided access to her, be informed of the whereabouts of her children.
· Urgent independent health care be provided for Dr. Afia Siddiqui as she is reported sick.
· Dr. Siddiqui be given the right to a free and fair trial with access to a lawyer of her choice.
· The Government of Pakistan must provide an expert criminal lawyer to assist her current lawyer in USA.
· The Government of Pakistan should ensure Dr. Afia Siddiqui and her children’s safe return to Pakistan.
WAF condemns the use of war on terror to arrest citizens in Pakistan without due process of law. Dr. Afia along with all the missing persons deserves justice without any further delay.
WAF, Lahore
9 August 2008
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‘Dr Afia’s case injustice to missing people’
WITH the US finally admitting having Dr Afia Siddiqui in its custody, one of the most brutal cases of suppression of individual freedom has become to unravel, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) says in its statement.
The HRCP, in its statement issued on Tuesday, called on civil society and human rights organisations to make concerted efforts for the release of all missing people and to ensure justice for Dr Afia.
The statement said the public pressure had compelled the US to admit that Dr Afia was in its custody. While the Pakistani government had belatedly begun to admit that it had some responsibility regarding Afia, it had a lot of explaining to do as to who had been detaining her since she was picked up from Karachi in 2003 along with her three children, the statement added.
To say that Afia had been taken into custody only on July 21, 2008, was a blatant lie, the statement said, adding that the insinuation that she had been hiding since 2003 was a travesty of truth and an affront of the people’s commonsense. It said that Dr Afia’s case was a reminder of the grave injustice done to numerous missing Pakistanis kept in US detention centres in Bagram, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere in the world.
Source: The News - International (Pakistan)
8 June 2008
Submitted on Sun, 08/10/2008 - 23:00