Renowned human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce was invited to speak at the JFAC rally, Aafia - The Last Stand, outside the US embassy London on August 15th. Regrettably she was unable to attend but sent this statement of support.
Sometimes it is said that being in prison is a deprivation so extreme that it matters not where that prison may be. But over the course of history we can see how the location of where prisoners serve their sentences can be used as a way of increasing the cruelty and punishment of imprisonment a hundredfold, and more often than not as a deliberate exercise of political discretion outside of what the courts have determined in the sentence itself. In Spain it has long been the practice to locate Basque prisoners as far away from their families as possible; in Soviet Russia, Siberia served exactly that purpose; in the UK, throughout 25 years of conflict, no Irish prisoners from the North of Ireland convicted in England were located in Irish prisons although for every other purpose the North is part of the UK. In this way the punishment is doubled – the prisoner is isolated and easily forgotten and the prisoner’s family is punished; distance, expense, fear, refusal of visas to visit and the strangeness and hostility of a country which regards the prisoner as the enemy captured in a “war” all play their part.
It was for all these reasons that treaties to allow for the transfer of sentenced prisoners to their own countries to serve their sentences came to be a practice adopted by country after country. If it is indeed frequent and normal, then this is a test of whether Aafia Siddiqui is in fact being treated by the US on equal terms with all other prisoners, or whether she is being singled out for different treatment intended to send a message and inflict additional punishment. Her treatment pre trial gives every reason to be extremely alarmed for the future and likely only to be affected by concerted urgent pressure, in particular from the government of her own country pressing for her immediate return.
It is important to know that the European Court of Human Rights has frozen a number of extraditions from the UK to the USA in recent years on the basis that high security prison conditions and the length of sentences in the USA may violate the European prohibition of cruel and inhuman treatment and torture. While those men remain still here while the Court examines those potential future conditions in detail, Aafia Siddiqui is already there and having to experience them now.
I certainly add my support to the concerns being expressed daily for her future and on the basis of what I have learned, over many years, can all too easily happen – a lifetime behind bars in a foreign land.
Gareth Peirce
August 15th 2010
