Bringing back prisoners

If we are signing this treaty, in hope that Aafia Siddiqi will return to Pakistan, then we are in for rude awakening.

Since the US declared its war on terror, Pakistan has complained loudly and frequently about the way it citizens have been picked up and detained without its knowledge, on allegations of perpetrating or planning terrorist activity. For the most part, these complaints have rung hollow. In his autobiography, In the Line of Fire, General (retd) Pervez Musharraf revealed that the country was paid a bounty for every suspected militant it handed over to the US. Now, more than a decade after the US first began picking up Pakistani citizens at will, we have demonstrated a willingness to sign the Council of Europe convention on the transfer or prisoners and convicts. The treaty, which has either been signed or ratified by 64 countries, would allow foreign prisoners to serve out their sentences at home.

The spur for signing this treaty, which we have not done since it was proposed in 1985, according to a report in this newspaper (and never denied by the outgoing government) is just one woman. Ever since she was convicted for shooting at US soldiers at a base in Afghanistan, Aafia Siddiqi has become a cause celebre in Pakistan. According to the technical terms of the treaty, Aafia Siddiqi should then be brought back home to serve out the remainder of her long sentence.

If we are indeed willing to sign this treaty, only in the hope that Aafia Siddiqi will return to Pakistan, then we are in for a rude awakening. The US is not about to send a person they believe to be involved in terrorism, even if she was convicted in a civilian court for a different crime, back to Pakistan. It believes, quite rightly as it happens, that Pakistan will simply bow to public pressure and release her should she come back here. On top of that, the treaty will not apply to all those Pakistanis who languish in Guantanamo Bay since they have never appeared in a civilian court. We should sign this treaty because it is the right thing to do; not because it will appease the public.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 24^th, 2013.