By Nadrat Siddique
A vigil for political prisoner Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was held on February 25 outside FMC Carswell. It was called at very short notice by Nadrat Siddique, of the Women's Committee to Free Aafia. The action followed Siddique's completion of her 55th marathon at age 55. That morning she ran the 26.2 miles of the Cowtown Marathon in Fort Worth, TX, not far from FMC Carswell, where Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is caged, and came to the vigil directly from there, arriving half an hour late as a result of the prolonged exertion in the Texas heat.
Siddique said Aafia, like the huge numbers of Palestinian women prisoners being held by Israel, had been treated as a non-person, with no recognizable rights. She had been assaulted and raped on both sides of the Atlantic, and the governments and prison authorities involved were liable, since they had failed to protect a prisoner under their charge. Aafia should be released immediately, Siddique said.El-Hajj Mauri Saalakhan, of the Aafia Foundation, was a guest speaker at the vigil. He has been coming to the Dallas-Fort Worth area for over a decade, mobilizing support for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, whose case was initially completely ignored by most major Muslim organizations. He organized annual protests at the prison, sometimes in concert with a smattering of local Muslim groups. He said that Aafia's case was a litmus test for the entire Muslim Ummah, and that the dearth of a response to her prolonged suffering indicated that the Ummah had failed. He also called upon local imams in the DFW area to visit Aafia in prison, as it would uplift her spirits, and keep the authorities on notice that the community was alert to her suffering.
Photos from the protest are here.
#FreeAafiaSiddiqui #FreeAllPoliticalPrisoners #FMCCarswell
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