Free U.S. political prisoner Dr. Aafia Siddiqui!

by Sara Flounders, published on Workers World, October 21, 2021

Aafia Siddiqui was a young single mother, recently separated from her husband and returned to Pakistan from the US when Pakistani Intelligence police snatched her from a cab in Karachi along with her 3 young children and abducted her.  The youngest child, an infant at the time, appears to have been killed in the course of her abduction.   I have visited Aafia Siddiqui’s family in Karachi and written a number of articles on Aafia Siddiqui’s story.  If you are interested, I posted the following to my blog in March of 2015: What happened to Aafia Siddiqui and Where is She Now?  [jb]

The case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is another great miscarriage of justice in the long history of the U.S. legal-carceral system, which reinforces xenophobia, anti-Muslim prejudice and white supremacy.

Arrested and brought to the United States for a “crime” she supposedly committed while not on U.S. soil, Dr. Siddiqui has been imprisoned at the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, for the last 18 years. She is known as the “Daughter of the Nation” in Pakistan for supporting her own country.

For almost two decades, Dr. Siddiqui has been subjected to the brutally harsh conditions of the U.S. prison system. This July 30 she was violently attacked by a fellow inmate, suffered burns and severe bruising, and was placed in solitary confinement. This is not the first time Dr. Siddiqui has been attacked.

The Aafia Foundation is spearheading mobilizations in five cities to mark Dr. Siddiqui’s 18 years of unjust imprisonment. The purpose of these mobilizations is:

• To raise awareness regarding the terrible miscarriage of justice done to this political prisoner and to make people fully aware of her innocence and plight.
• To protest the recent attack on Dr. Siddiqui at FMC Carswell, and to demonstrate concern and solidarity with her, especially given the nature of the recent assault
• To demand accountability for the failure of the prison facility to protect Dr. Siddiqui, and to inform her lawyer promptly about the assault.
• To demand the repatriation of Dr. Siddiqui back to her home country, Pakistan.
• To demand humane treatment of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui until repatriation occurs.
• To fulfill our moral and communal responsibility to stand against injustice and be the voice for the voiceless!
• To send a message to the powers that be that Dr. Aafia Siddiqui has NOT been forgotten!

For more on the Five City Mobilization, contact .  For more on Dr. Siddiqui’s case, go to www.aafia.org.

*Featured Image: On the right, Aafia Siddiqui at the time she was brought to the US for trial. On the left, Aafia Siddiqui giving a presentation on women’s rights while she was in college.  The latter isn’t surprising since her sister Fowzia is a medical doctor and her mother was independent and active in charities in Pakistan.

Sara Flounders is an American political writer who has been active in ‘progressive’ and anti-war organizing since the 1960s.  Sara is Co-Director of the International Action Center (IAC) and  a member of the Secretariat of Workers World Party  She also frequently writes for Workers World newspaper and publishes articles on the International Action Center website.