The Truth About US Justice
The Truth About US Justice
By Yvonne Ridley
Courtesy to "Tehran Times"
Many of us are still in a state of shock over the guilty verdict returned on Dr Aafia Siddiqui.
The response from the people of Pakistan was predictable and
overwhelming and I salute their spontaneous actions.
From Peshawar to Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and beyond they marched in
their thousands demanding the return of Aafia.
Even some of the US media expressed discomfort over the verdict
returned by the jurors … there was a general feeling that something was
not right.
Everyone had something to say, everyone that is except the usually
verbose US Ambassador Anne Patterson who has spent the last two years
briefing against Dr Aafia and her supporters.
This is the same woman who claimed I was a fantasist when I gave a
press conference with Tehreek e Insaf leader Imran Khan back in July
2008 revealing the plight of a female prisoner in Bagram called the
Grey Lady. She said I was talking nonsense and stated categorically
that the prisoner I referred to as “650” did not exist.
By the end of the month she changed her story and said there had been a
female prisoner but that she was most definitely not Dr Aafia Siddiqui.
By that time Aafia had been gunned down at virtually point blank range
in an Afghan prison cell jammed full of more than a dozen US soldiers,
FBI agents and Afghan police.
Her Excellency briefed the media that the prisoner had wrested an M4
gun from one soldier and fired off two rounds and had to be subdued.
The fact these bullets failed to hit a single person in the cell and
simply disappeared did not resonate with the diplomat.
In a letter dripping in untruths on August 16 2008 she decried the
“erroneous and irresponsible media reports regarding the arrest of Ms
Aafia Siddiqui”. She went on to say: “Unfortunately, there are some who
have an interest in simply distorting the facts in an effort to
manipulate and inflame public opinion. The truth is never served by
sensationalism…”
When Jamaat Islami invited me on a national tour of Pakistan to address
people about the continued abuse of Dr Aafia and the truth about her
incarceration in Bagram, the US Ambassador continued to issue rebuttals.
She assured us all that Dr Aafia was being treated humanely had been
given consular access as set out in international law … hmm. Well I
have a challenge for Ms Patterson today. I challenge her to repeat
every single word she said back then and swear it is the truth, the
whole truth and nothing but the truth.
As Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s trial got underway, the US Ambassador and some
of her stooges from the intelligence world laid on a lavish party at
the US Embassy in Islamabad for some hand-picked journalists where I’ve
no doubt in between the dancing, drinks and music they were carefully
briefed about the so-called facts of the case.
Interesting that some of the potentially incriminating pictures taken
at the private party managed to find the Ambassador was probably hoping
to minimize the impact the trial would have on the streets of Pakistan
proving that, for the years she has been holed up and barricaded behind
concrete bunkers and barbed wire, she has learned nothing about this
great country of Pakistan or its people.
One astute Pakistani columnist wrote about her: “The respected lady
seems to have forgotten the words of her own country’s 16th president
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865): “You can fool some of the people all of
the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool
all of the people all of the time”.
And the people of Pakistan proved they are nobody’s fool and responded
to the guilty verdict in New York in an appropriate way.
When injustice is the law it is the duty of everyone to rise up and
challenge that injustice in any way possible.
The response – so far – has been restrained and measured but it is just
the start. A sentence has yet to be delivered by Judge Richard Berman
in May.
Of course there has been a great deal of finger pointing and blame
towards the jury in New York who found Dr Aafia guilty of attempted
murder.
Observers asked how they could ignore the science and the irrefutable
facts … there was absolutely no evidence linking Dr Aafia to the gun,
no bullets, no residue from firing it.
But I really don’t think we can blame the jurors for the verdict - you
see the jury simply could not handle the truth. Had they taken the
logical route and gone for the science and the hard, cold, clinical
facts it would have meant two things. It would have meant around eight
US soldiers took the oath and lied in court to save their own skins and
careers or it would have meant that Dr Aafia Siddiqui was telling the
truth.
And, as I said before, the jury couldn’t handle the truth. Because that
would have meant that the defendant really had been kidnapped, abused,
tortured and held in dark, secret prisons by the US before being shot
and put on a rendition flight to New York. It would have meant that her
three children – two of them US citizens – would also have been
kidnapped, abused and tortured by the US.
They say ignorance is bliss and this jury so desperately wanted not to
believe that the US could have had a hand in the kidnapping of a
five-month -old baby boy, a five-year-old girl and her seven-year-old
brother.
They couldn’t handle the truth … it is as simple as that.
Well I, and many others across the world like me, can’t handle any more
lies. America’s reputation is lying in the lowest gutters in Pakistan
at the moment and it can’t sink any lower.
The trust has gone, there is only a burning hatred and resentment
towards a superpower which sends unmanned drones into villages to
slaughter innocents.
It is fair to say that America’s goodwill and credibility is all but
washed up with most honest, decent citizens of Pakistan.
And I think even Her Excellency Anne Patterson recognizes that fact
which is why she is now keeping her mouth shut.
If she has any integrity and any self respect left she should stand
before the Pakistan people and ask for their forgiveness for the drone
murders, the extra judicial killings, the black operations, the
kidnapping, torture and rendition of its citizens, the water-boarding,
the bribery, the corruption and, not least of all, the injustice handed
out to Dr Aafia Siddiqui and her family.
She should then pick up the phone to the US President and tell him to
release Aafia and return Pakistan’s most loved, respected and famous
daughter and reunite her with the two children who are still missing.
Then she should re-read her letter of August 16, 2008 and write another … one of resignation.
Yvonne Ridley is a patron of Cageprisoners which first brought the
plight of Dr Aafia Siddiqui to the world’s attention shortly after her
kidnap in March 2003. The award-winning, investigative journalist also
co-produced the documentary In Search of Prisoner 650 with film-maker
Hassan al Banna Ghani which concluded that the Grey Lady of Bagram was
Dr Aafia Siddiqui
In : Yvonne Ridley
Notes