Articles
by Andrew Purcell
Okay. I got my Christmas gift seven weeks early. A complete surprise considering it came directly from Aafia.
Opinion
A Tale of Three Accused Women: And justice American style
by Mauri Saalakhan
This is coming to our readers from the state of Alabama. On Friday I spoke at Masjid Qasim Bilal El-Amin in Montgomery (AL); last night I spoke at the Islamic Center in Hoover (AL), part of Greater Birmingham; tonight (insha'Allah) I will have a few words at the Birmingham Islamic Society in Homewood (aka, The Homewood Masjid), also part of Metropolitan Birmingham.
This is coming to our readers from the state of Alabama. On Friday I spoke at Masjid Qasim Bilal El-Amin in Montgomery (AL); last night I spoke at the Islamic Center in Hoover (AL), part of Greater Birmingham; tonight (insha'Allah) I will have a few words at the Birmingham Islamic Society in Homewood (aka, The Homewood Masjid), also part of Metropolitan Birmingham.
Earlier this afternoon I did an interview by telephone with Press TV (an Iran-based network I believe), a comparative analysis of the criminal cases involving three young women, two Americans and one Pakistani. The cases of Amanda Knox, Casey Anthony, and Dr. Aafia Siddiqui reveal just how arbitrary and capricious "justice" can be in the U.S. legal system, and how conceptually flawed it can be in the collective mind of the American people (generally speaking).
These three cases also reveal, in very graphic detail, the role that race, class, gender, religion and politics often play in the pursuit of justice in the western hemisphere.
Amanda Knox was prosecuted and convicted in Italy (along with her Italian lover and an African immigrant) for the brutal murder of another young female foreign exchange student. Knox received a sentence of 26 years as a result. Now via the automatic appeals process in European law (a superior quality, in my view, to American law), and the recent decision by an appellate judge to allow an independent review of key forensic evidence that was used to convict her - because the evidence was reportedly contaminated by being mishandled by Italian investigators - Knox has a good chance of winning release in the near future.
(If I were a betting man, I would wage it all on my belief that Ms. Knox will be "legally" cleared and repatriated back to America sooner than later.)
Casey Anthony, a young woman from Florida, was charged in the death of her own child, Caylee Anthony. Despite the damning evidence against her, Anthony was recently found not guilty of the most serious charges in the murder indictment, and convicted only for giving false information to the law enforcement officers who investigated the case. Anthony has now been released to an undisclosed location, and reportedly stands to make a fortune when ever she decides to "tell her story."
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is a Pakistani national, and committed Muslim woman, who came to the United States at the age of 18 for university study. She excelled academically at the University of Houston, MIT, and Brandeis University. She also distinguished herself as a young leader of the Muslim student organization(s) to which she belonged, and engaged in praiseworthy charitable work in the greater Boston area. Aafia would later become a person of suspicion (post 9/11), return home to Pakistan, and eventually become a target of a rendition operation (along with her three young children - ages six, four, and six months) in March of 2003.
After five years of secret detention and torture, Aafia would mysteriously re-emerge in a weakened and disheveled state in Afghanistan; she would be shot and seriously injured while awaiting re-interrogation; and soon after be brought back to the United States, in 2008, to eventually stand trial (two years later) for allegedly "attempting to murder U.S. personnel" (FBI and soldiers) in Afghanistan in July 2008.
While Amanda Knox and Casey Anthony (young, white, non-Muslim females) became "tabloid darlings," whose trials played out in the public sphere like Reality TV dramas, the trial of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was shrouded under a cloak of near anonymity within the United States - despite the presence of a significant number of reporters in the courtroom each day of the trial.
Both Knox and Anthony misled investigators (aka, repeatedly lied) during their interrogations, while Aafia was forthright from start to finish.
Both Knox and Anthony initially tried to shift responsibility for the crime that they were accused of committing on to an innocent person, and both had strong circumstantial evidence against them. In Siddiqui's case both the material and circumstancial evidence were strongly in her favor; it was the government's star witnesses that perjured themselves on the witness stand during the trial (although they were never charged with perjury)!
Casey Anthony received an extreme presumption of innocence from a jury that saw a young white female who was facing the death penalty, if convicted. (I predict that the presumption of innocence principle will strongly kick in, post conviction, based on the alleged contamination of evidence, in the appeals process for Amanda Knox.) And while Ms. Anthony had a fair and impartial jurist to preside over her case, Judge Belvin Perry, Aafia Siddiqui had just the opposite. U.S. District Judge Richard Berman was openly biased against Dr. Siddiqui from start to finish.
Anthony's jury was sequestered in a hotel, cutoff from the outside world; while Dr. Siddiqui's should have been! The jury in Aafia's case left the courthouse each day, and were continually exposed to the highly prejudicial, government-fed local media reports that contaminated the court of public opinion; reports that were so unfair and poisonous that they made any prospect for an impartial deliberation process almost impossible.
Anthony's attorneys were given a lot of latitude in their defense of their client; while Siddiqui's attorneys were hamstrung (and in the opinion of some observers,allowed themselves to be hamstrung) to such an extent, that the missing fives years of her secret detention were made off limits during the trial!
While Casey Anthony is a free woman (relatively speaking); and Amanda Knox - who has benefited from a growing defense lobby, and American press coverage that has been primarily positive - may soon be a free woman; Dr. Aafia Siddiqui (who is not accused of harming anyone!) received a sentence of 86 years on September 23, 2010, and is now being confined at a notorious institution (known as Carswell) on a military base in Fort Worth, Texas.
The well known peace activist, Cindy Sheehan, made a provocative observation regarding the outcome of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui case, not long after her sentencing:
"Even if Dr. Siddiqui did shoot at the Americans, reflect on this. Say this case was being tried in Pakistan under similar circumstances for an American woman named Dr. Betty Brown who was captured and repeatedly tortured and raped by the ISI. Here in the states that woman would be a hero if she shot at her captors, not demonized and taken away from her life and her children. I believe Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is a political prisoner and now the political bogey-woman for two US regimes."
I couldn't agree more...and so goes the tale of three accused women.
El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan
SOURCE: Peace Thru Justice Foundation
Smearing Farha Ahmed
by Sara Yasin While these mailers did not necessarily cost her the election, this smear campaign relied on many stereotypes of not only Ahmed, but Siddiqui as well. The mailer charges that Ahmed, a long-time member of the Sugar Land community, was appointed as the lawyer for Siddiqui. The piece of evidence used is an article in The Express Tribune, a Pakistani daily. According to the article: Less than a month after the sentencing, Siddiqui fired her lawyers and waived her right to an appeal. Siddiqui wrote that she had fired her five lawyers and would be represented by Farha Ahmed, a Texas-based attorney. Ahmed declined to speak to The Express Tribune about Siddiqui. While the details in the article may be correct, they are not necessarily true. While Ahmed was sent as an individual to represent Siddiqui, this does not mean that she actually represented her. Ahmed is not a criminal defense lawyer, and I would think that her connection to such a high profile case would make it easier to connect her to Siddiqui. According to comments Ahmed made to Fort Bend Now, Siddiqui might have requested her as a lawyer based on her pro bono work against domestic violence, as well as her assistance in recovering missing children: “Because of my pro bono work with missing and abused children as well as my contacts in the Bush State Department, they believed I could be of help,” she said. “It is inappropriate for me to discuss the details of the case any further other than to state that the children were found. I would also like to humbly request that the identities of the children be safe-guarded for their protection.” Even if Ahmed did serve as Siddiqui’s lawyer, this does not mean that she is a secret jihadist. Representing an individual that does not mirror your own values is hardly a novel occurrence in the legal profession. It only appears to matter in this case because Ahmed is a Muslim. The problem here is not that the questions are being asked, but the reasoning behind it. The purpose of the mailer was not to question the connection, but rather about cherry picking facts in order to convey a very simple message: that every Muslim, even the ones that seem to be concerned with zoning and taxes are secret Jihadist robots. While Islamophobes seem to believe that the outcry is based on “political correctness” foiling the system, this is really a witch-hunt, rather than constructive questioning of terror or the government. What is most troubling about this story is that despite the simple research involved in debunking most allegations in the mailer, few have actually stood up to defend Ahmed. The flier recycles stereotypes, and inspires fear of the Muslim next door. This story is indicative of a much larger and more frightening phenomenon: how acceptable it is to have open hatred of Muslims. While Islamophobes would strategically cite concerns about ‘Shariah’ being implemented in the United States, or other concerns related to a vague idea of “militant Islam,” what is really at play is a ruthless hate for Muslims and anything related to Islam. Ahmed’s candidacy should be evaluated on her credentials and service to the community, not on fear-mongering campaigns that treat Islam as a dirty word.
In June, a small business lawyer and politician named Farha Ahmed was in a run-off election against Harish Jajoo for a city council seat in Sugar Land, Texas. In the final hours of the election, an anonymous mailer was sent around the town proclaiming that Ahmed is connected to Al-Qaeda. The “concerned citizen” links her to Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a woman branded as “Lady Al-Qaeda” in the media. She is also questioned for her connection to CAIR.
SOURCE: Muslimah Media Watch
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