Running the Boston Marathon for Pakistani Women’s Rights

(Or in particular, for the rights of an outstanding Pakistani woman political prisoner)

April 22, 2017

Letters to the Editor

The Boston Globe

PO Box 55819

Boston, MA 02205-5819

Dear editor,

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist, once attended MIT on full scholarship. She completed studies in biological sciences, and went on to do her PhD in cognitive neuroscience at Brandeis University, successfully completing it despite being in an abusive marriage (with a Pakistani from whom she later divorced). Her PhD focused on helping dyslexic and otherwise learning disabled children. Today she languishes in a U.S. federal penitentiary, a political prisoner for whom tens of thousands of Pakistanis demonstrate regularly on the streets of London, Karachi, Islamabad, and Peshawar.

I am a Pakistani woman athlete who has run 31 marathons in nine years (including seventeen sub-4 hour marathons). The case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who had adopted Boston as her home for over a decade, was so compelling that I could not run America’s oldest marathon except in her name. So, on Patriots Day 2017, I ran my first Boston Marathon in an attempt to draw attention to the egregious human rights violations against this innocent Pakistani Muslim woman.

As I stood in the Boston Commons on race morning, waiting with other runners to board the bus to the race start in Hopkinton, I could picture the slight and slender Aafia among the other doctors, scientists, and health professionals who were among the 27,000 athletes running Boston this year. Instead, Aafia occupied a tiny holding cell at the United States Penitentiary at Fort Worth, completely cut off from her family and community, her health gravely impugned by 14 years of political imprisonment.

She was arrested in Islamabad in a joint U.S.-Pakistani intelligence operation in 2003, one of many innocents caught up in a broad net of politically-motivated, arbitrary, or misplaced arrests during the “War on Terror.” At first, Aafia’s captivity was kept a secret by her captors. This lasted about five years. In flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention, Aafia’s captors refused to acknowledge her presence within the prison system, allowing them to act with complete impunity towards her. She spent part of her captivity at the U.S. Air Force Base in Baghram, Afghanistan, where she was known as “Prisoner 650.” During this time, Aafia was denied proper medical treatment, and repeatedly tortured and raped.

Two of Aafia’s young children, Ahmed and Mariam, were arrested and imprisoned along with her in violation of Geneva Convention stipulations on the detention of children. Like Aafia, they were not entered in any prison registry. Much later, Ahmed and Mariam were released and ordered not to reveal anything about their captivity.

In 2008, Aafia’s captors finally acknowledged that they were holding her, and she was sent to the U.S. to face charges. Her trial was held in a Manhattan courtroom beset by fears of terrorism. She appeared in a wheelchair, displaying signs of having been tortured. Bizarrely, the 110-pound, 5’2’’ Pakistani neuroscientist was charged with the assault and attempted murder of seven U.S. servicemen in Afghanistan.

Despite grave contradictions in the prosecution’s case, and clearly exculpatory evidence in Aafia’s favor, she was convicted and sentenced to 86 years.

On Monday, I ran the Boston Marathon in honor of Aafia, who did so many great things while in Boston. The front of my race tee-shirt bore her image with the words “Free Dr. Aafia.” The back of the tee read “Prisoner 650,” a reference to the early period of Aafia’s captivity when she was held secretly in Baghram. Throughout the race, I met many wonderful race volunteers and runners who were students at MIT. I wondered how many of them knew of their government’s abuse of a Pakistani woman scientist who had sat in the same classroom as them.

Aafia’s case is a glaring example of the government’s disregard for due process, human rights, women’s rights, civil rights, prisoners’ rights, and children’s rights. It is my hope that women’s rights groups and civil libertarians in the U.S. will call for her release. These groups have vociferously and consistently opposed the oppression of Muslim women and girls in cases like that of Malalai Yousufzai, the Chibok girls in Nigeria; and in cases of honor killings. If they are act on principle and not politics, they must speak out for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.

-Nadrat Siddique