WASHINGTON:
Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Sherry Rehman on Friday met with Tina Foster, the lawyer for Pakistani neuroscientist Dr Aafia Siddiqui, who is serving a prison term in an American jail.
Foster apprised the ambassador of her client’s situation and discussed with her various options to ease Aafia’s conditions of incarceration, and in the long term, her repatriation to Pakistan.
Ambassador Sherry assured Foster that the Pakistan mission took responsibility to protect the rights of Pakistani citizens, including Dr Aafia, very seriously and would continue to ensure that no Pakistani citizen was deprived of these rights.
Sherry said that the Embassy and the Pakistan consulate general in Houston were in contact with FMC Carswell prison authorities and that she had asked the authorities to provide Dr Aafia with appropriate medical care. Ambassador Sherry also thanked Foster for trying to uphold Dr Aafia’s rights.
She said the Pakistani government had engaged a high-level team of attorneys to provide the best possible legal defence for Dr Aafia.
The embassy has said that it helped re-establish telephonic contact between Dr Aafia and her family in Karachi and also interceded on her behalf to try to ensure that her various other concerns, including those relating to her health, were addressed.
The embassy says it will continue to play this role while also exploring various options to facilitate Dr Afia’s eventual repatriation to her own country. The ambassador also assured the lawyer that she intended to visit Texas and to meet with Dr Aafia.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 28th, 2012.
COMMENTS (6)
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Aafia Siddiqui is NOT a US citizen, she is ('unfortunately') a PAKISTANI citizen. She was flown over to the US from Afghanistan to face trial (and imprisonment) for something that allegedly took place IN AFGHANISTAN. This lady has NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, been charged or convicted of ANY terrorism or terrorism related activity. She is in prison following the allegation of shooting at visiting US Officers WHILST BEING HELD IN AFGHAN POLICE CUSTODY (allegedly the gun was taken from the US Officers). THESE ARE THE FACTS. PLEASE STICK TO THE FACTS. This human being, this woman, this mother, deserves all the support she can get. But how many are aware of her plight??
hi , i like sherree rehman ,because she is fighting for human rights,
@uza syed you must get your news from fox or skynews. the only country aafia had been a citizen of, sold her to the americans. unfortunately those "shoeshine boys" who sold her are enjoying immunity of the west. those western nations were smart enough to get their innocents out of american gulags but nobody from pakistan hasn't been man enough to demand such yet. a nation of na-mards, i guess i must be proud of. aafia is an unfortunate woman who had been caught up in a war on empire and greed like thousands of people had been since the twin tower fell. anybody who hasn't understood this plain story is on dope. how do i know? the way i know that everyday the thousands who are bombed in north pakistan by drones are innocent of the planes that hit the twin towers (if ever there were any planes involved in the first place). the truth is, the americans messed up with aafia so bad that to hide one crime, the murder of her infant and subsequent torture and rape for 5 years, they invented a thousand more. the bottom line is that aafia had to be proved a terrorist to keep the hands of law out of her reach, despite the fact that there were no finger print found on the weapon she was alleged to have fired and the house negro judge refused to hear her case of abduction and torture at the american hands. unfortunately only in a country like pakistan, terrorists are voted into office and innocents find themselves pilloried for public entertainment. next time vote for umar shariff, at least the public would be able to get the circus if not bread.
Sherry has metamorphosed herself into "Criminal's Rights" activitist now. And all this at the cost of our money. Let me remind her she is our ambassador there to represent our interests and not an American citizen's who is also a criminal in the eyes of her chosen country. Haven't we wasted enough of our money for a woman terrorist of a foreign citizenship caught doing some activities less than normal by any sense of normal definition. Now, do us favour. Stop gaining a popularity which, in fact you did not have, by diging an old grave. Maximum you will achieve is some clemency, for your sake, in the form of diluted pardon, acceptance of which is an automatic admission of guilt anyways. Pardon doesn't amputate guilt of a criminal and it doesn't absolve a criminal of its committed crimes either.
Well done!! Sherry is a brilliant lady. She passed several Women Right's bills from the assembly. Being an ambassador and Women Right activist, she would hopefully continue her struggle to protect Dr. Afia's rights.
I found this about Afiaa on wiki.
"In a 2010 audio-recorded testimony, the Sindh Province Police Superintendent confirmed his personal involvement in arresting and abducting Siddiqui and her three small children in March 2003. He said that local Karachi authorities were involved, participating with Pakistani intelligence (ISI), CIA and FBI agents"
So, if Pakistanis are involved in her arrest, then why this farce of protest against the USA?