On the Passing of Pervez Musharraf

By Nadrat Siddique

The former dictator of my country, Pervez Musharraf is dead. Among his other ignominies,

- Musharraf turned a Muslim woman scientist, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, over to the CIA, to be raped, tortured, and brutalized, her children forcibly removed from her and separately imprisoned. She was ultimately sentenced to 86 years in prison for a crime she could not have committed;

- Musharraf turned over the Islamabad-based Taliban ambassador, Mullah Abdus Salaam Zaeef, never mind his diplomatic status, to the U.S. The soft spoken, scholarly ambassador was then sent to the U.S. torture center at Guantanamo Bay and held for 4½ years before being released. He was never charged nor tried.

- During the early years of the WOT ("War on Terror"), Musharraf allowed the U.S. to put out a dragnet to seize all manner of innocents from Pakistani soil. These men and boys, including some as young as 14, were sent to secret prisons, where they endured horrific torture. Many of these were sent on to the U.S. torture center at Guantanamo Bay, where they were held for indefinite periods, without charge or trial, deprived of counsel.

- Post 9-11, Musharraf subverted Pakistan's economy to serve the U.S. WOT.

- Musharraf ordered the military assault and siege of Lal Masjid, a major mosque in Islamabad, which he perceived to be too hard line. He ordered the murder of its imam. The imam's mother and numerous other members of the mosque were also killed in the assault.

- In conjunction with the Lal Masjid assault, Musharraf ordered the Pakistan Army to attack Jamia Hafsa, an Islamic seminary for young Muslim women. Jamia Hafsa was contiguous to, and associated with Lal Masjid. Large numbers of Jamia Hafsa students were detained. Many of these "disappeared" indefinitely.

- Musharraf authorized the Pakistan Military to conduct the aerial bombardment of hundreds of mosques in the Northwestern frontier of Pakistan, setting off what became known as the Waziristan War.

- Musharraf authorized unfettered use of Pakistani air space by the U.S., allowing the latter to conduct thousands of drone strikes across the Pakistani frontier, as well as in Afghanistan. These resulted in the deaths of thousands of Pakistani and Afghan civilian deaths.

I, for one, will not be mourning Pervez Musharraf. He can most charitably be characterized as an imperialist sycophant and king of munafiqs. The pain of his medical treatment for amyloidosis will pale in comparison to what Allah (AWJ) has in store for this war criminal. Inshallah.

#FreeAafiaSiddiqui #PervezMusharraf #PakistanZindabad

Running While Muslim, Running for Aafia

By Nadrat Siddique

Special to the New Trend

It was Patriot’s Day Monday in Boston, and I ran through torrential rain from my hotel to the Boston Common two miles away. I was there to run my second Boston Marathon, calling attention to the case of a small, slight Pakistani Muslim woman neuroscientist, being held political prisoner by the United States. Her name is Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.

Boston is very odd as far as marathons go, for three reasons. For one, unlike nearly all other races, which are held on the weekend, Boston is held on a Monday. And that Monday is nowhere a holiday except in Boston.

Secondly, the race starts for most runners—depending on one’s assigned start time—around 10:30 or 11:00 a.m., very late by racing standards. Nearly all other races start around 7:00 or 8:00 a.m., with some starting as early as 6:00 a.m., both to avoid the heat of the day, and to minimize traffic blockages. The late start means that a majority of Boston Marathon runners do the bulk of their running in the afternoon heat, which raises the specter of serious health risk.

The third major oddity about Boston is that the course is one-way, as opposed to a loop, or multiple loops, like most marathons. On race morning, we runners gathered at the Boston Common to be bused to the tiny town of Hopkinton, approximately 26 miles west of the city.  Once there, in what seemed a no-man’s land, we were, at our assigned time, to run our way back to Boston. In between were a multitude of colleges, hills, and screaming fans. The fans lined every mile of the course, making the race extremely boisterous. It is decidedly not the place for an introvert. The runners were overwhelmingly White, as were most of the fans. There were, relatively speaking, a small number of Asian and light-skinned Latino runners.

The race was sponsored by the financial giant John Hancock. The founding father’s name was everywhere, proudly plastered on our marathon medals, mylar blankets (reflective blankets given to runners post-race to prevent hypothermia), and other marathon paraphernalia and memorabilia. There was no discussion of the fact that Hancock, like the other founding fathers, was a slave owner.

In the Boston Common, we runners went through a checkpoint, to get to the yellow school buses which would carry us to the race start. We were told precisely what type of bag (clear plastic) could be carried on the buses. Grateful to be out of the rain, we boarded the buses under the direction of volunteers. The twenty-six mile bus trip took close to an hour. It provided a welcome opportunity for runners to dry off.

Once in the very white Hopkinton, we went through an additional checkpoint to the starting area. Repeatedly, it was emphasized that only the clear plastic bags provided by the race organizers could be used for bag check (ie to allow runners to leave essential items needed after the race in a common but secured holding area). Automated announcements repeated ad naseum that unattended bags (along the course) would be confiscated by authorities and might be destroyed. A large number of metropolitan police, as well as some military police with submachines (the number of the latter had diminished significantly since the 2017 race, which I’d run) lined the course. Army snipers were positioned on rooftops in Hopkinton and at various points along the course.

Many of the athletes represented corporate teams. These names, e.g. Dana Farber, were pre-printed on runners’ singlets (sleeveless running shirts). As I ran, I heard the corporate names yelled out frequently by spectators, far more often than individual names. To me, this was yet another indicator of the stranglehold of corporate culture in the U.S. At many smaller races, spectators call out runner’s names (sometimes printed on the runners bibs) as they pass. Or, they call out the runners’ bib numbers, or other identifying nouns based on runners’ attire to encourage them. Not so at Boston. Unlike at previous races where I’ve worn the same shirt, nary a person yelled for me, “Go Aafia!”

Some runners ran in memory of a deceased family member, whose name they wore on their shirt. A few had country affiliation on their shirts. The most interesting were the visually impaired runners. According to statistics which I read later on the race website, these numbered 44, and required a guide companion. Each runner/ guide pair held opposite ends of what looked like a connecting plastic bag to keep them together, with the guide wearing a tee saying “Blind Runner.”

No other runners, as far as I could tell by observation and later research, ran for a political prisoner. And this year, like the last, there appeared to be few, if any other Pakistani women. As I said the last time I ran Boston, I could only run this race for Aafia. It pained me, as I ran past the turnoff to M.I.T., where Aafia had once studied, to think of this petite woman, beloved mother of three, and star scholar, suffering in a tiny Texas prison cell for a crime she clearly did not commit. But—what pained me the most was that Muslims, even those who knew her during her time in the U.S., and all Muslim organizations, except for Jamaat al-Muslimeen and the Aafia Foundation, were willfully silent on her suffering. And silence is still complicity.

By now, I have run two National (Washington DC) Marathons, a Chicago Marathon, and two Boston Marathons in Aafia’s name. (All told, I have run 42 marathons, but many of them have been for my own personal edification/ challenge, which I also view as important.) I am obviously not a professional athlete, or particularly fast. My best mile time is 7:18, run at the International 5K in Columbia, MD, where I represented Pakistan (unofficially).

I am not paid by anyone to run for Aafia or other political prisoners. I run for them because I believe it is a fundamental part of my faith, Islam, to stand up for the oppressed.

The Qur’an says in Surat-ul Balad, “And what is the Ascent? It is to free a slave.” I view it as my responsibility to fight for the freedom of the modern day slaves, the political prisoners, whose existence, while denied by the U.S. government, is an unfortunate reality under the system of White Supremacy and the congruous imperialist wars.

In that capacity, I traveled to the Black Hills (SD) and Plymouth (MA), to run for Leonard Peltier; to Salt Lake City (UT) and Hyannis (MA), and to run for Mumia Abu Jamal (Black Panther political prisoner); to Chicago to run for Aafia; to Wilmington to run for (then-) Bradley Manning (Wikileaks whistleblower turned political prisoner); and now again to Boston to run for Aafia. There is always a way to speak out when grave injustice is occurring, however one chooses to do it. And for me, it is through running.

#FreeAafiaSiddiqui #FreeAllPoliticalPrisoners #BostonMarathon2019 #RunningForJustice

© 2019 Nadrat Siddique

This article first appeared in New Trend, April 21, 2019

Letter to Dawn (Pakistani Daily Newspaper) on Dr. Aafia Siddiqui

March 26, 2016


The Editor

Dawn

Karachi, Pakistan

Dear Editor,

I am a Pakistani Muslim woman marathoner, living in the Washington, DC area. Since 2009, I have run 26 marathons in ten different states of the U.S. (A marathon, by definition, is 26.2 miles.) In at least five of these 26 competitions, I have qualified for the Boston Marathon. (The Boston marathon is an elite and exclusive race, for which one must first meet the rigorous qualifying standards set by the Boston Athletic Association in another marathon.)

On March 12, I ran the Washington DC Marathon to call attention to the plight of another Pakistani woman: Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.

Dr. Siddiqui holds a bioscience degree from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a PhD in neuroscience from Brandeis University. Although I have never met her, I can say with some certainty that she is highly intelligent, articulate, deeply Islamic, and cares about Muslim suffering in faraway lands. As such, she is a hero to me, as to many other Pakistani woman (and men).

March 31 will mark 13 years since Aafia was kidnapped from Karachi with evident collusion between the Musharraf regime and U.S. intelligence services operating on Pakistani soil. Her three minor children were captured along with her. Despite clear prohibitions on the imprisonment of children in the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights—to which Pakistan is a signatory—two of Aafia’s children were imprisoned along with her. The third, an infant, appears to have been killed in the course of the rendition.

Running 26.2 miles without stopping is not easy. It can hurt. It can make one feel hopeless, very minute in the overall scheme of things. Many people never complete the race. Exhausted, they commence walking part way through.

There can be other complications like the one I had the night before the marathon. Due to some complication, the custom-made black and white “Free Dr. Aafia Siddiqui” tee shirt I had ordered to wear during the race did not arrive. So I took it upon myself to make one. The excitement of the race and painting the homemade “Free Dr Aafia” shirt kept me up the night before, and I slept only four hours. Around 20,000 people would be running the race, so parking near the starting line was out of the question. I got up before fajr, grabbed my gear, and boarded the Washington DC subway to the race start near the Washington Monument.

The race started at 7:30 AM sharp. As I ran up a steep hill near DC’s famed Dupont Circle, the lack of sleep caught up with me and my muscles ached. I wondered how I would complete the race. For some reason, as I ran along DC’s picturesque Southwest Waterfront, the picture of Aafia’s angelic face in hijab came clearly to my mind. I thought about the horrors she had endured. Aafia, mother of three, who loved children so much that her PhD thesis centered upon them—watching helplessly as her baby Suleman slipped from her arms and fell to the ground, his skull fractured, as Pakistani police roughly arrested the young mother. Innocent, sweet Aafia, with the face of a flower, repeatedly raped and tortured in a remote U.S. military base in Baghram, Afghanistan. What kind of sick bastards could do that to a Muslim woman? My physical pain melted away, to be replaced by psychic pain, and I ran faster, finishing the marathon in 3 hours, 57 minutes.

After five years of being held without charge, and denied even official recognition that she was a prisoner (her name did not appear in any prison, police, or military registry during this time), Aafia was officially handed over to U.S. authorities, and tried in a New York court. The trial was presided over by Judge Richard M. Berman, a Zionist who was clearly biased against Muslims. Not surprisingly, she was convicted and sentenced to 86 years in U.S. prison.

What is surprising—and indeed was the reason I felt compelled to run the Washington DC marathon in Aafia’s name—is that she remains in prison. She is in extremely poor health, has been denied proper medical attention, and can die in U.S. prison—without ever having seen her children and other family members.

The ordinarily vociferous feminist groups, quick to deplore the violations of women’s rights by “those horrible Talibans” have been completely silent on her case. In fact, it is noteworthy that feminists on both sides of the Atlantic, including those who embraced Malalai Yousafzai, have said not a word about Aafia and the very long range torture she endured. Similarly, the liberal U.S. media, such as the Daily Beast, Salon.com, and others, who are ordinarily extremely vigilant about the violations of Pakistani—and in general—Muslim women’s rights because they love us so much [sarcasm intended], have uttered not one word about Aafia.

The Pakistani government has taken no effective steps toward her release. “Israel,” when its citizens are captured, sends commandos to free them. The U.S. government, under President Jimmy Carter, sent a military mission to free American hostages then held by Iran. Other nations have interceded either militarily or diplomatically (eg, via prisoner exchange) when one of its citizens is wrongly held by a foreign government. General Musharraf, under whose reign Aafia was captured, is long gone, and largely discredited at least among some sectors. But- Pakistan, a nation headed by Muslim men—with Qur’an and hadith as their Guiding Light—continue to sit idly by while a Muslim woman is held captive, tortured, and raped for over a decade.

The Pakistani press, too, appear to have written her off.

Aafia is a political prisoner, being held not for any wrong doing, but for the crime of being a Muslim and in the wrong place at the wrong time. What is wrong with us, that we can’t stand up even in this most clear cut case of injustice?

As a Pakistani Muslim woman athlete, I urge the immediate release of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, and a cessation of illegal and unmandated (by the Pakistani populace) U.S. intelligence activities on Pakistani soil which lead to tragedies such Aafia’s.

Sincerely,

Nadrat Siddique

Maryland

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Juma'ah Reflections on Masaud Khan

I visited the Islamic Center of Maryland (Gaithersburg) for juma'ah prayers today. Political prisoner Masaud Khan and his mother, Elizabeth Khan attended here. She still visits time and again. I thought of them, as I stood distributing the New Trend (anti-imperialist Muslim newsmagazine), about how he, incarcerated as a young man, and now in his thirties, lost his youth to an incredibly unjust System. And- I thought about her, a mother, fighting desperately to get her son out of the clutches of that System.

In the last four weeks, I've visited four different masajid in the Baltimore-Washington area) for juma'ah. Three of the four masajid had political prisoner associations to them. That is, either a Muslim locked up on political (bogus) charges attends/ attended there, or the family of a political prisoner attends/ attended there. I realized what a tragic commentary this was on the state of affairs and suffering of the Muslim community: Many, many communities have been devastated by the targeting of political dissidents, or at least operate in fear. They dare not exercise basic First Amendment protected freedoms, not even in the House of Allah. Muslim-on-Muslim snitching is pumped as a solution to the "extremist problem," all speakers/ imams, other than government-approved ones, are excluded from most masajid; even imams on the government's "approved" list must sign agreements not to speak on certain topics, or to approach topics in ways objectionable to the authorities. While local and national government officials and candidates are welcomed into the mosque, dissident Muslim speakers are excluded. Literature from Democratic and Republican candidates for office is welcomed, while Islamic literature is frequently banned (or rules greatly impugning its distribution are enacted).

In the course of the FBI's "War on Terror," completely innocent men and women from communities across the U.S. have been locked up on the words of informants, or harassed and hounded by federal agents, often to justify intelligence budgets. All of this is meant to keep the public in fear of approaching "Muslim Hoard," which have replaced the "Reds Under the Beds," or to justify support for Israel and various dictators ruling Muslim lands.

Under such a climate, we have the choice of becoming apolitical, mindless drones, who question nothing, and swallow any nonsense directed at our people. Or we can speak, write, and go forth for that which we know to be just- at the peril of becoming political prisoners ourselves.

We then cannot afford to be silent. I encourage everyone to help the families of those unjustly detained; to write to Muslim political prisoners (as well as other political prisoners) so that they know they are not forgotten; to join a committee to free a political prisoner; and to educate others on the reality of political imprisonment in this country.