On July 6, 2008 a British journalist, Yvonne Ridley, called for help for a Pakistani woman she believes has been held in isolation by the Americans in their Bagram detention centre in Afghanistan, for over four years.
“I call her the ‘grey lady’ because she is almost a ghost, a spectre whose cries and screams continues to haunt those who heard her,”
Ms Ridley said at a press conference.
Dr. Afia has lost her senses due to excessive mental torture and the decrepet condition in which she is locked with male prisoners.
According to the BBC Urdu, the FBI has conceded that Dr. Afia Siddiqi who had vanished from Karachi over five years ago in March 2003 along with her children is in the custody of American forces in Afghanistan but sadly in a horrid medical condition
The information comes from BBC, when it received an email from lawyers based in the US hired by Dr. Afia’s brother to try and help influence the release of her sister who has been allegedly been in the custody of American forces. The lawyers claims that on Thursday an agent from the FBI came to Dr. Afia Siddiqui’s brothers house and admitted to the fact that Dr. Afia is indeed in solitary confinement within a prison in Afghanistan and in serious medical condition
It may be recalled that over five years ago Dr. Afia suddenly disappeared from Karachi along with her three children never to be seen from again, both the Pakistani and American forces have never acknowledged her disappearance until probably now, five years after her kidnapping. The admittance may well be attributed to the immense media pressure created when a number of human rights organizations presented evidence of a certain prisoner-of-war known as Prisoner 650 who was in terrible medical condition within an American prison located in Afghanistan and they had reason to suspect that Prisoner 650 was Dr. Afia Siddiqui
Her three children were also kept with her in Bagram detention centre but now only one is known to be alive. Maybe the other two children were slaughtered before her in order to facilitate the interrogation.
BBC Urdu reports that since Thursday’s development family members have been running from pillar to post in an attempt to wrangle more information on the whereabouts of Prisoner 650, but authorities have been tight lipped about the issue.
In all the frantic developments over the past three days the family within Pakistan has been on the receiving end, of anonymous threatening phone calls to try and subdue them to remain quite on the entire international issue.
Who is Dr. Afia Siddiqui.
Dr. Afia Siddiqui, who studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US, for about 10 years and did her PhD in genetics, returned to Pakistan in 2002. Having failed to get a suitable job, she again visited the US on a valid visa in February 2003 to search for a job and to submit an application to the US immigration authorities. She moved there freely and came back to Karachi by the end of February 2003 after renting a post office box in her name in Maryland for the receipt of her mail. It has been claimed by the FBI (Newsweek International, June 23, 2003, issue) that the box was hired for one Mr Majid Khan, an alleged member of Al Qaeda residing in Baltimore.
Throughout March 2003 flashes of the particulars of Dr. Afia were telecast with her photo on American TV channels and radios painting her as a dangerous Al Qaeda person needed by the FBI for interrogation. On learning of the FBI campaign against her she went underground in Karachi and remained so till her kidnapping. The June 23, 2003, issue of Newsweek International was exclusively devoted to Al Qaeda. The core of the issue was an article “Al Qaeda’s Network in America”. The article has three photographs of so-called Al Qaeda members - Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Dr. Afia Siddiqui and Ali S. Al Marri of Qatar who has studied in the US like Dr. Siddiqui and had long since returned to his homeland. In this article, which has been authored by eight journalists who had access to FBI records, the only charge leveled against Dr. Afia is that
No one knows how many more such detainees are held without charges in the concentration camps of the so-called fighters against terror. If such prisoners are believed to be terrorists then why are they not trailed in court.“she rented a post-office box to help a former resident of Baltimore named Majid Khan (alleged Al Qaeda suspect) to help establish his US identity."
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