Daily Times

Fouzia Siddiqui, the sister of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, on Sunday, said that the whole nation, including Aafia’s family, had pinned high hopes on the apex judiciary to dole out justice to Aafia.

Fouzia Siddiqui was talking to the media before leaving for Islamabad where the hearing of a constitutional petition in the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) for Aafia’s release was scheduled for Monday, June 24 when she said that her sister had already wasted 15 prime years of her life in illegal detention for no crime committed by her.

She said that Aafia Siddiqui was an educationist and had returned Pakistan after getting doctorial education in the USA to serve the Pakistani nation in the field of education, but she was kidnapped along with her three minor children, trafficked abroad and put in illegal detention.

Dr Fouzia said that early release and repatriation of Aafia Siddiqui was the demand of whole Pakistani nation. She said the release of Aafia would help in improving soft image of Pakistan in the world. She said that the whole Pakistani nation was determined to see early and respectable return of Aafia and rejoining with her family.

In September 2008 a New York federal district court charged Aafia with attempted murder and assault stemming from an incident in an interview with US authorities in Ghazni, charges which Siddiqui denied. After 18 months in detention, she was tried and convicted in early 2010 and sentenced to 86 years in prison.

Published in Daily Times, June 25^th 2018.