Siddiqui arrest brings attention to the 'disappeared' issue in Pakistan

Source: LA TImes

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN -- The high-profile arrest of a Pakistani woman suspected of Al Qaeda links casts a spotlight on an issue her nation's fledgling civilian government has been slow to confront: years of official secrecy surrounding the fate of hundreds of people rounded up as terrorism suspects.

Some human rights activists believe that Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani-born neuroscientist who appeared Tuesday in federal district court in New York, was originally "disappeared" by Pakistani authorities five years ago, possibly at U.S. behest.

American officials said this week that Siddiqui had been arrested in Afghanistan last month and flown to the United States on Monday after recuperating from a gunshot wound that authorities said she suffered in a shootout after her capture.

Siddiqui, who trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, initially dropped out of sight in 2003 in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, at a time when U.S. authorities wanted to question her about her suspected ties to Al Qaeda.



Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-disappeared6-2008aug06,0,4186470.story

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The disappeared may be in the 10s of thousands. We are such bastards.

She was a neuroscientist trained at MIT. The 9/11 hijackers and many other al-Qaeda madmen aren't fighting because they're poor or oppressed or ignorant. Most of these people, by and large, have been well-educated, middle-class, and with strong families. Many of them don't fit into our preconceived notions and stereotypes of what a terrorist should look like, and many of us find that scary.

That having been said, just because many of us find something to be frightening doesn't make it okay to "disappear" people. Moral superiority is the one thing that we shouldn't lose sight of. Without that, "winning" doesn't really mean all that much. We didn't have much moral superiority to begin with; what very little we used to have was traded away in 2001 faster than George W. Bush heading for a Nebraska bunker.

And we're supposed too believe that this woman:


Disarmed a man very similar to this one:


Bullshit.

article just a while ago. It is dated April 3, 2003, and states she was arrested and being interrogated by U.S. intelligence officials. The question is: WHERE has she been, and WHO was holding her? Where were her children? Were they being held, also?

Here is a link to the post: http://tinyurl.com/6myayz


I am so ashamed of our country!