Wake up! [A poem]

I smile sometimes when I play with children,
I laugh sometimes when I’m joking with my sisters,
I celebrate sometimes on happy occasions,
Only to be left with rain from delusions.

My face fires up, I cannot believe it,
Who would remain happy for even a moment,
When my brothers and sisters are being butchered abroad
By America and her allies in the most cruel of forms.

How can this be
How?

It’s like living when your dead…

I wish I could help.

Sometimes tears gush through the eyes
Warm yet cold, darkness inside
A wimp I truly am for failing to free them
Is this something the “scholars” set as a trend?

Yes, the ‘knowledgeable’ deceive the masses
They’re paid criminal wages from your taxes
You’d think they really had some knowledge
But their apparent can’t have any more of a stench.

I hope that one day I’ll come and help you
Just like I would if my mother was slain too
I swear by Allaah I can never be concerned,
Until I am with you, fighting and then martyred!
Waiting for that day, with eagerness and thrill
A gift only given to whomever Allaah Wills.

So I say if you really cared for them
You would prepare your self
To defeat the devils den
And to obliterate every one of them
That are responsible for the Muslims’ death.

Fight until we can lift our heads high
This crusade will end, justice will survive,
In the path of Allaah, seek to die
Hurry! Can’t you hear their cry?

[Anonymous]

Aafia Siddiqui

Background

Dr. Aafia earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from MIT and earned her doctorate from Brandeis University.

Her doctoral thesis was “Learning through Imitation” in which she included her research on improving learning techniques for children.

She was totally dedicated to her children and her academic studies revolved around how children learn.

Unfortunately, Dr. Aafia became a victim of domestic violence during her marriage.

In 2002, Dr. Aafia’s husband moved the family to Pakistan and soon divorced her while she was pregnant with the couple’s third child. He remarried within weeks of giving her the divorce.

Dr. Aafia is now 38 years old, a mother of three children (2 are US citizens), divorced, and is a Pakistani citizen.

Circumstances Surrounding the Case:

Briefly, here are some of the basic circumstances of Dr. Aafia’s case:

• In March 2003, Dr. Aafia and her three children, Ahmad (boy), six years old and an American citizen, Maryum (girl), four years old and also an American citizen, and Suleman (boy), six months old, kidnapped by unknown authorities in Karachi, Pakistan.
• On March 31, 2003 it was reported by the Pakistani media that Dr. Aafia had been arrested and turned over to representatives of the United States. In early April, this was confirmed on NBC Nightly News, among other media outlets.
• There was communication to the mother of Dr. Aafia from purported “agencies” that the family members should be quiet if they want to see Aafia returned alive.
• By the year 2008, many believed that after five years of being disappeared Dr. Aafia and her three children were most likely dead.
• Then, in July of 2008, the same month Dr. Aafia “appeared” in Ghazni, two events occurred:

1. British human-rights reporter, Yvonne Ridley and former Bagram detainee and British citizen, Moazem Begg, publicly spoke about a woman in Bagram screaming, a woman whom they named the “Grey Lady of Bagram”
2. A petition for habeas corpus was filed with the Pakistan High Court in Islamabad requesting that the court order the Pakistani government to free Dr. Aafia or to even admit that they were then detaining her.

What Supporters and Family Believe?:

This is what the family and many other supporters in the US and in Pakistan believe:

• That Dr. Aafia was (and is) an innocent person who was abducted for money or based on false allegations or false conclusions derived from an unknown source.
• That, unfortunately, all evidence required for her defense and establishing legal proof of her detention would require full cooperation by the U.S. and Pakistani governments, and intelligence agencies, a cooperation that seems impossible.
• That documents incriminating Dr. Aafia are either false documents or produced under torture or threat of harm to her children.
• That the Afghan police were looking for Dr. Aafia and her son based on a description given by an anonymous tip on the day she was detained in Ghazni.
• That had Dr. Aafia and her son been shot on sight on suspicion of being suicide bombers, this would have led to a convenient closure of the case of Aafia Siddiqui at a time when a petition for habeas corpus was pending in the High Court of Pakistan in Islamabad. Note that this court had been asked to order then-President Musharraf and the Pakistani government (which would include anyone working with them) to release her or to reveal her whereabouts.
• That Dr. Aafia, who spoke no local language in Ghazni, was dressed so conspicuously in a manner to be easily identified and shot on sight as a (falsely-accused) suicide bomber as a part of someone else’s plan.
• The forensic and scientific evidence presented during the trial in New York proved that Dr. Aafia could not have committed the crimes for which she was charged, still the jury disregarded the evidence and chose to agree with the prosecution due to fear and prejudice.

What Dr. Aafia’s detractors want?:

• We are asked to believe that Dr. Aafia, a respectable Pakistani woman in all ways, is now the first and only female terrorist from Pakistan; was voluntarily hiding under cover with three children acting as a terror field operative while at the same time leaving her family to believe for five years that she and her three children were dead.
• We are asked to believe that Dr. Aafia arranged this just after her father died, after finding out her marriage was disintegrating, and after leaving her widowed mother alone in Pakistan. It is absolutely not plausible and does not even fit the traditional profile by law enforcement of female or male terrorists from that part of the world.

Current Situation:

• In February, 2010, Dr. Aafia was tried and convicted in a US Federal court on charges of attempted murder and assaulting US servicemen in Ghazni, Afghanistan.  The official charges against Dr. Aafia were that she assaulted U.S. soldiers in Ghazni, Afghanistan, with one of the servicemen’s own rifles, while she was in their custody, waiting to be interrogated by them. No US personnel were hurt but Dr. Aafia was shot and suffered serious injuries including brain damage. Dr Aafia categorically denies these charges.
• There were NO terrorism charges against Dr. Aafia.
• According to several legal observers, the trial of Dr. Aafia was littered with many inconsistencies and defects, chief among them being many rulings by the judge that strongly favored the prosecution and prejudiced the case against the defense. These ranged from allowing much hearsay evidence and jury instructions that favored the prosecution. In addition, Dr. Aafia was not represented by lawyers of her choosing and faced constant innuendos of terrorism when she was not charged with any such offense.
• As a result of Judge Richard Berman’s framing of the case in a negative light, Dr Aafia was convicted despite ALL physical and forensic evidence that showed that she could not have committed the acts she was charged with.

• On September 23, 2010, Dr. Aafia was sentenced to 86 years in prison by Judge Richard Berman who overruled the jury’s determination that there was any pre-meditation. The judge also added enhancements that were not part of either the charges against Dr. Aafia nor part of the conviction.
• After her sentencing, Dr. Aafia aasked that people not take any revenge or get emotional.  She asked that those who have wronged her be forgiven as she forgave Judge Berman.
• Dr. Aafia remains imprisoned, now at the notorious Federal Medical Center (FMC) in Carswell, Fort Worth, Texas where she is kept in the Special housing unit (SHU) which is the most severe confinement category. She is still not allowed communication with anyone she trusts, including family members.

Dr. Aafia’s Children:

• Dr. Aafia’s oldest son, Ahmed, who is a U.S. citizen by birth, was found in Ghazni, Afghanistan after thinking he was an orphan and, in late 2008, was reunited with Dr. Aafia’s sister in Karachi, Pakistan.
• Dr. Aafia’s daughter, Maryum, also a US citizen by birth, was mysteriously “dropped off” in April 2010 near her aunt’s house in Karachi after being missing for 7 years.  She was traumatized and spoke only American accented English.
• Dr. Aafia’s youngest child, Suleman, a boy who would now be about seven years old, remains missing; and is feared dead.

What Supporters and Family Seek?

• Dr. Aafia, an MIT and Brandeis laureate, is now a broken and mere shell of her former self. Under these circumstances, family and supporters are asking the U.S. government to repatriate Dr. Aafia back to her home in Pakistan.
• The Pakistani government has formally made this request as this matter has become a major public issue and has support across Pakistani political and social spectrums. Supporters and people of conscience should press government officials to get Dr. Aafia reunited with her family as soon as possible.
• An independent, open (with full public access and disclosure) and serious investigation should be undertaken into what happened to Dr. Aafia over the missing years and the whereabouts of her remaining child, so that this does not happen to other innocents.
• Dr Aafia’s family and supporters still have hope in fair minded peoples committed to mercy and justice to raise their voices. Justice for the past, for all Dr. Aafia has suffered, is hard to imagine.
• All that is asked for the future is for some measure of correction. If Dr. Aafia is repatriated, perhaps she can pick up some fragments of life with her family.

Closing:

We ask people to look into this case themselves, and to do so with an open mind. There is a lot of information out there on the Internet, and in the media. Many of the stories demonize Aafia, while some raise her to sainthood. Aafia is neither demon nor saint. Aafia is simply an ordinary mother, daughter and sister trapped in an extraordinary nightmare.

WRITE TO SISTER AAFIA SIDDIQUI!

AAFIA SIDDIQUI # 90279-054
FMC CARSWELL
FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTER
P.O. BOX 27137
FORT WORTH, TX 76127
U.S.A

FREE THE MUSLIM PRISONERS!

The following has been taken from Tarek Mehanna’s website, may Allah hasten his release ameen. Click here to view this on his website.

From the things that the Ummah should wake up to and be worried about are the affairs of the Muslim prisoners all over the world, especially the scholars and callers to Allah amongst them – those who took it upon themselves to openly speak the truth and confront falsehood. This applies to those imprisoned by the treacherous apostate slave regimes in the Muslim lands – and they are many, and they are put through immense torture and humiliation in these dark oppressive prisons – as well as those being held in the prisons of the Romans in America and the Western countries. I am especially referring to the Muslim youths who are unjustly held at Guantanamo Bay, as well as the elderly blind scholar, Shaykh ‘Umar ‘Abd ar-Rahman, who is put through so many types of harm, humiliation, and subjugation in prison. They pay no regard to his weakness, old age, or status with the Ummah, and they do not intend with this except to subjugate Islam and the Muslims! May Allah hasten his release and the release of all of the Muslims all over the world!

O nation of Muslims, do you think that if the other nations had in the prisons of the Muslims what we have in their prisons that they would remain silent? Do you think that they would live in comfort or relaxation?!

I think that you have heard how America and all the other Western nations threatened the Libyan people with various punishments, sanctions, etc. if they didn’t free a group of female European criminals who intentionally killed over four hundred Muslim children by injecting them with AIDS-infected needles, that deadly disease! At the same time, the Islamic nation has hundreds if not thousands of scholars and Muslim youth in the prisons of the disbelievers and apostates for no crime except that they said their Lord is Allah, as Allah Said: {“They had nothing against them except that they believed in Allah, the Mighty, Worthy of all Praise!”} [al-Buruj; 8] Despite this, the Muslims are completely clueless and heedless except those who Allah has bestowed Mercy upon. They pay no attention to the situation and the oppression and hardships that these prisoners are experiencing, as if these prisoners from the scholars and youth of Islam are not the sons of this nation and have no rights upon their Muslim brothers!

O Muslims! How can you live comfortably and remain silent in the face of the injustices done to your imprisoned brothers while Allah Said: {“Indeed, the believers are brothers…”} [al-Hujurat; 10] and {“The male and female believers are allies of one another…”}[at-Tawbah; 71]?

O Muslims! How can you live comfortably and remain silent in the face of the injustices done to your imprisoned brothers while your Prophet (صلى الله عليه و سلم) said: “Feed the hungry, visit the sick, and free the prisoner!”

And he said: “It is upon the Muslim faithful to free their prisoners and to pay their ransom.”

And he said: “There is no Muslim who forsakes a Muslim in a situation where his reputation and honor are violated except that Allah will forsake him in a situation where he would want His help, and there is no Muslim who helps a Muslim in a situation where his reputation and honor are being violated except that Allah will help him in a situation where he would want His help.” And what is worse than for the entire Ummah to forsake the best of its sons who took it upon themselves to protect its religion and honor in their hardest hour?!

And he said: “Whoever helps his brother in secret, Allah will help him in this world and the next.”

O Muslims! How can you live comfortably and remain silent in the face of the injustices done to your imprisoned brothers while your Prophet (صلى الله عليه و سلم) said: “The believer to the rest of the believers is like the head to the body: the believer is pained at what afflicts the rest of the believers just as the head feels the pain of whatever afflicts the body.”

And he said: “The believers are like a single person: if the head hurts, the entire body complains, and if his eyes hurt, the entire body complains.” And his saying “the believers” means that every single believer – regardless of their race, color, and nationality – cannot be except like a single person in their cooperation and compassion and unity. They are like a single man, feeling the pain as if they are one body, feeling concerned for each other just as a man feels pain and concern in his entire body when a single limb of his hurts. Are we like this?!

O Muslims! How can you live comfortably and remain silent in the face of the injustices done to your imprisoned brothers while your Prophet said: “You see the believers in their mercy and compassion towards each other like a single body: if a single limb hurts, the rest of the body tends to it to relieve it.” So, each one of us should ask himself in order to test his faith and ascription to the believers and to this religion: am I one of those who worries and feels the pain when the Muslims around the world are going through hardships? Or am I one of those who don’t care and only pay attention to my own interests and desires?!

O Muslims! How can you live comfortably and remain silent in the face of the injustices done to your imprisoned brothers while your Prophet said:“Whoever relieves a Muslim of a hardship in this life, Allah will relieve him of a hardship in the Hereafter, and Allah will help His slave so much as he helps his brother.” And what hardship is greater to relieve and remove from your Muslim brother than the hardships of being a prisoner? Imagine how great the hardships are of being captive in the depths of the prisons of the oppressors and criminals!

And he said: “The Muslim is the brother of the Muslim. He does not oppress him or hand him over, and whoever helps his brother, Allah will help him. And whoever relieves the distress of a Muslim, Allah will relieve his distress on the Day of Resurrection.” His statement “he does not oppress him or hand him over” means that he does not hand him over to oppression and the oppressors, and rather strives to rescue him from their clutches,

O Muslims, you want the scholars and callers to Allah to openly proclaim the truth and to fulfill their obligations towards the Ummah, yet if they do this and are afflicted with trials and hardships such as their being thrown into the depths of the prisons of the oppressors, you abandon them and distance yourselves from them, and sit back from helping them as if you don’t know them and they have no rights over you… {“That is a division that is most unfair!”} [an-Najm; 22] So, Islam should be aided by the Muslim people as well as their active scholars together – not one instead of the other.

A door to the doors of good has been opened for you, O slave of Allah! So, take advantage of it before it shuts and you are prevented from this abundant good! This door is that you see to the needs of your imprisoned brothers and their families and children. So, I give glad tidings to those who take advantage of this before the door is shut, and they spend the rest of their lives in regret!

O Allah, the Living, the Self-Sustaining! Owner of Majesty and Honor! I ask You by Your Mercy and Power to release the Muslim prisoners everywhere on Earth, to relieve their distress, to unite them with their children and families and loved ones immediately, to be with them in their solitude, to keep them firm, to cause tranquility to descend upon their hearts, and to exact revenge upon the oppressors and their helpers. Show us one of Your signs in how You deal with them, as You are Hearing, Close, and Respondent, our Lord!

And may peace and blessings shower our unlettered Prophet, his Household, and his Companions.

Our final call is that all praise is for Allah, the Lord of the worlds.

Original Arabic