Soon after running the BMW Dallas Marathon for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, I wrote a letter to the DFW area's leading Black newspaper, the Dallas Examiner. I'd had no success getting letters about my actions for Dr. Siddiqui published in major newspapers in the area, but, I had high hopes that a Black newspaper might possess a slightly different consciousness. Weeks passed, and my hopes were dashed. Not only was the letter not published, but there was no acknowledgment of its receipt.
--Nadrat Siddique
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Dear Editor,
An important event occurred earlier this month, which seems to have escaped the notice of most Dallas news media. The sister of a well-known political prisoner was finally allowed to visit her. The prisoner is a Pakistani woman educator named Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. She is a very unusual prisoner, in that she is a PhD with degrees from MIT and Brandeis, and prior to being locked up, she was developing a novel educational methodology for children with autism and other learning disabilities.
She was on the brink of presenting her ideas to appropriate bodies in Pakistan, when she was kidnapped by security forces from Karachi, She was shot in the abdomen, repeatedly raped and tortured in secret prisons in Afghanistan (then being run as part of the U.S. “War on Terror”), and ultimately brought to the U.S. for trial. Although she was convicted by a New York court in 2010, there is hard forensic evidence that she could not have committed the crime of which she was accused.
The unusual event I mention is the Texas visit of Aafia’s elder sister, Dr. Fowzia Siddiqui. Fowzia, is a Harvard-educated physician with a focus on neurology and epilepsy, and is based out of Karachi, Pakistan. She traveled the 8,300 miles from there, along with Pakistani Senator Talha Mahmood and U.K.-based Aafia Attorney Clive Stafford-Smith, to see her sister, only to be told by the prison, FMC Carswell, that they couldn’t locate the key for the visitation cell! So, the meeting was canceled for that day, and Fowzia left the prison distraught.
The following day, the prison allowed the sisters to meet, but, the meeting was much shorter than agreed upon by prison authorities, and despite the promise of a “social visit,” no contact was allowed between the sisters.
A day later, Attorney Clive Stafford-Smith met with Aafia. Aafia told him she had been raped while at FMC Carswell! As the visit came to an end, Aafia was crying for Clive not to leave, as she was deadly afraid to return to her cell for more abuse.
In and of themselves, her allegations are not surprising, given the multitude of lawsuits brought by female inmates alleging sexual assault and rape against the prison. In fact, the allegations were so widespread that FMC Carswell was included in a 2022 U.S. Senate investigation on abuse of female inmates at FBOP facilities. But, it is gut wrenching for Aafia’s ultra-conservative, close knit family of academics that not only prison authorities present numerous road blocks to their visits, which are guaranteed under FBOP regulations, but that their sister, after already being raped in Third World prisons, is once again undergoing such “Cruel and Unusual” punishment at a U.S. prison hospital.
As a Pakistani multi-marathoner and political prisoner advocate, I ran the BMW Dallas Marathon on December 10 to call attention to Aafia’s case. I wore a tee which said, “Free Dr. Aafia Siddiqui!” It was my 54th marathon all told, and my tenth for Aafia. I truly hope people in the Dallas area will think about the horrors being visited upon this innocent woman in the midst of their Christmas merry making. Is this what Jesus (Peace Be Upon Him) would have wanted?
Sincerely,
Nadrat Siddique
Nadrat Siddique is a Pakistani woman marathoner based out of the Washington, DC area. She is a member of the Jericho Movement, which advocates for political prisoners.
