Image: Sayhoon
Faizel Patel – 01/04/2021
Senior Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai says there is no clear and visible efforts by the Pakistani government to secure the release of Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui.
Siddiqui has been languishing in a prison medical centre in the US state of Texas for the past 18-years
Siddiqui was arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 and flown to the United States, where she was sentenced to 86 years in prison for the attempted murder of two US soldiers.
Speaking to Radio Islam, Yusufzai says the Pakistani government has been largely silent on efforts in getting Siddiqui released from prison.
“I think they maybe are discussing it privately. The Pakistani Diplomatic Missions in the US sometimes say they have been able to visit the jail and meet her. But there’s no sustained and comprehensive effort to secure her release.”
Yusufzai says Siddiqui has been unfairly punished.
“I think the US government and judiciary wanted to make her an example and the allegations that were made against her is unbelievable.”
The Dr Aafia Siddiqui Movement Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapter in March led by the organisation’s president Wasim Abbas staged a demonstration to protest the incarceration of Aafia Siddiqui and urged the authorities to take practical steps to secure her release from the US.
Listen to the interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai
0 Comments