Aafia Siddiqui

Just to let you know that I’ve finally got my YouTube Channel up and running, featuring some of the various films, TV shows and events I’ve been involved in for the last six months, to which new material will be added as and when it happens — and original material, if I ever get round [...]

Regular readers will know that I have long been concerned by the case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani neuroscientist whose story is one of the murkiest in the whole of the “War on Terror.” Dr. Siddiqui disappeared with her three children in Karachi in March 2003, and for five years neither the US nor [...]

My thanks to an eagle-eyed supporter for pointing out that, on January 11, the Voice of the Cape radio station in South Africa interviewed Elaine Whitfield Sharp, the lawyer for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani neuroscientist whose 86-year sentence in a New York courtroom last September — for allegedly trying and failing to shoot at [...]

Yesterday, Cageprisoners, the British NGO that works to raise awareness of the plight of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other detainees held as part of the “War on Terror,” announced that it had “helped spearhead roundtable talks with senior members of the Pakistan government over the repatriation of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui,” the Pakistani neuroscientist, [...]

On November 14 — a very rainy Sunday in London — I was one of a number of speakers who gathered outside the Pakistani embassy for an event, “Bring Aafia Home,” which was organized by the Justice for Aafia Coalition, to urge the Pakistani government to do all it can to secure the return of [...]

In sifting through the avalanche of US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks, only the Guardian, in the Western media, has picked up on cables from Islamabad relating to the case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani neuroscientist who disappeared with her three young children in Karachi on March 30, 2003, and did not reappear until [...]

On Wednesday December 1, from 6.30 to 9.30 pm, I’ll be discussing the fate of Aafia Siddiqui at the London Muslim Centre, 46-92 Whitechapel Road, London, E1 1JX, with other speakers including Moazzam Begg, former Guantánamo prisoner and the director of Cageprisoners, and the journalist Yvonne Ridley, who is a patron of Cageprisoners, and has [...]

In an attempt to maintain pressure on the Pakistani government to secure the return to Pakistan of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the neuroscientist who, in September, was sentenced in New York to 86 years in prison, the Justice for Aafia Coalition is holding a week-long series of events around the world, entitled “Bring Aafia Home.” As [...]

On September 18, I was delighted to be asked to attend “Eid Without Aafia,” and to conduct a live interview with former Guantánamo prisoners Shafiq Rasul and Ruhal Ahmed. The event, in east London, was organized by the Justice for Aafia Coalition to raise awareness about the case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani neuroscientist [...]

I’m cross-posting below an extraordinary account by former Guantánamo prisoner (and Cageprisoners director) Moazzam Begg of his first visit to Pakistan since he was abducted from his house in Islamabad on January 31, 2002, and subsequently held in US custody — in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo — for three years. Moazzam’s account includes retracing his [...]