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Your rape culture is not my religion

by Sana Saleem

That reporting a rape is an arduous ordeal is a truth that resounds globally. When braving for police investigations, enumerating the ordeal in court and damaging stereotypical media representations become a norm then the argument for a pellucid approach becomes preemptory.

In 2006, a much-heated debate on the Hudood Laws revealed the anatomy of rape, conflicting legalities involving misinterpretations of Shariah Laws and the deeply engrained distorted public perceptions. For those who followed the debate, there should be no qualms in admitting that it made the inherent flaws in interpretations of the law and the systematic distortion of a society sensitive to violence and abuse evident.
The women protection bill implemented later that year made it possible for a woman to convict on the basis of forensic and medical evidence. Aimed at encouraging women to report the crime, which was deterred due to the farcical ‘four witness’ rule enforced by the Hudood ordinance, the act has been strongly opposed by Jamaat-i-Islami, whose activists and leaders continue to lobby against the act.

Munawar Hassan

In a recent interview to a local news channel, Munawar Hassan of Jamaat-i-Islaami had the following to say:

Anchor: Why did you vehemently oppose the women protection act?
Munawar Hasan: Women protection act was not aimed at protecting women instead it is meant to promote vulgarity and obscenity in the society.
Anchor: What is the basis of your allegations?
Munawar Hasan: On the basis of which we opposed the act.
Anchor: The fundamental purpose of the women protection act was (is) to provide women with the right to file cases on the basis of circumstantial and forensic evidence, making convictions of rape easier. Where is the obscenity in that?
Munawar Hasan: This bill has been part of law for years, how has that affected the rights of women in Pakistan? What is the one issue that can be pointed out as a success of this law?
Anchor: One blaringly obvious problem with the Hudood law was the need to present four witnesses in order to convict a rapist, failure to do so resulted in the arrest of the woman on charges of confession to adultery, that was the main issue.
Munawar Hasan: What is the problem in that?
Anchor: The problem is this sir, that according to the 2003 national commission status of women report 80 per cent women were forced to languish in jails because of inability to produce witnesses of their rape.
Munawar Hasan: The objective of Islam is to discourage such acts, no one can be shameless enough to commit such an act in the presence of four people. Making it impossible to prove such acts, therefore the whole idea is to discourage bringing such acts into public light. Discouraging it to the extent that the act is never quoted. If such a crime occurs and since there are no witnesses than both men and women are suppose to keep it under wraps and not discuss it in public.
Anchor:Sir, are you suggesting that a woman should stay silent after she is raped? That she should not report the crime?
Munawar Hasan: I am saying she should keep quiet if she has no witnesses. If she has witnesses then she should present them.
Anchor: What kind of an argument is that? A woman is raped and she has to look for witnesses to prove the crime?
Munawar Hasan: Argue with the Quran and not me.
Anchor: I am not questioning the Quran, I am questioning your argument.

As it becomes evident, Munawar Hasan makes up for the lack of substance in his argument by accusing the anchor of speaking against the word of God, he then goes thus far as asking the anchor to read the ‘kalima’ and declare his faith. The anchor concludes the argument by suggesting that Islamic laws pertaining to rape should be respected but in the presence of facilities such as forensic study we should not refrain from conviction.

This for me, defeats the purpose of the entire debate. Firstly because the interpretation of the Shariah law as per Munawar Hasan is neither derived directly from the Quran nor is it widely accepted. The Hudood ordinance is based on interpretations of certain scholars; it is neither a unanimously accepted interpretation nor is it logical.

Rape is a crime and criminals tend to prefer committing the crime without leaving evidence or witnesses. The idea of having four witnesses present at the time of rape is irrational and absurd. Can anyone in their right mind imagine witnessing rape and not doing anything to stop or even report it? If not by law then by conscience, would they not feel complacent? Rape is much more than forceful sex. It is a power game; it is a way to overpower the victim both physically and psychologically and derive pleasure out of it. To discourage rape victims from reporting rape is serving the predatory nature of the rapist.

Similarly, the callously flaunted idea that women use rape as a tool for popularity, fame, and money or simply to attack Islamic principles is devoid of logic. For all we know, taking a rapist to court in Pakistan can put you behind bars, after dealing with the severe moral policing of course.

The arguments and logic provided by Munawar Hasan form a vivid example of rape culture. To elaborate rape culture, it is prevalent practices by which despite the rampant increase in sexual violence, rape (and other forms of violence) is condoned, considered a norm or worse considered tolerable. The most powerful tool to propagate such a culture is through moral policing the victim and by reinforcing the ‘she was asking for it’ mindset. To validate and rationalize rape and (or) sexual violence need a wide variety of beliefs that stem from an inherent misogynistic approach towards the social fabric.

Inconsistent application of law and moral policing the rape victim makes for a steady case for rape culture. Munawar Hasan isn’t the only practitioner and preacher of this culture, if we look at the way the accuser in
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of IMF, is being treated, one can be sure that rape culture is a globally adopted phenomena for which religion, moral, ethics or culture are mere ploys.

This is made much easier when done at the behest of religion and morals. The four witness rule as clear by all available translations and interpretations of the Quran is to be sought in case a woman is accused of fornication. The impossibility of four people witnessing the act was meant to make it tougher for the society to slander a woman. It is indeed heart wrenching to witness it being used to encourage violence against women and cultivate a culture of silence and shame.

I am not going to refrain from commenting on the interpretations simply because the Quran is meant and believed to be a book for guidance for all-alike — not just the scholars. Islam doesn’t preach a method of dependency, in fact the tone carried throughout the Quran addresses individuals directly, the entire concept is a spiritual and personal connection with God. Scholars are pursued to elaborate on various methods of law, but leaving them to impose their interpretations on us is faulty and damaging and works against the very principle of Islam. A faith that is threatened by introspection and one that is scared of evolution is fickle and convoluted.

Munawar Hasan is no ordinary politician; he is the Ameer of one of the oldest religious political party. For him to advocate the culture of silence and shame in the name of religion is a mockery of our beliefs. When we choose to allow scholars to use rhetoric to avoid questions we inadvertently become complacent If we choose to hold back our questions and remain silent in the face of such rhetoric we must brace ourselves to accept full liability of injustice to the victims of rape, all 2,903 of them.

Musharraf Plans Return to Pakistan Politics

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf says he is planning to return home and return to politics.

In an interview with the BBC broadcast on Friday, Mr. Musharraf, who now lives in London, said he is willing to risk his life in order to restore a sense of hope to his people.  He criticized the current Pakistani government, accusing it of putting the country on “an artificial, make-believe democratic path” that has resulted in “darkness all over.”

Mr. Musharraf said he will return to Pakistan and create a new political party before the next elections in 2013.  He also defended his record as president and promised to answer any allegations against him.

The former army general stepped down in 2008 after political parties moved to impeach him for violating the constitution.

The ruling coalition accused Mr. Musharraf of imposing emergency rule in Pakistan so that he could fire senior judges.  They said the move was part of an effort to circumvent legal challenges to his plans to run for a second term in office.

Mr. Musharraf denied any wrong doing at the time, and further defended his record as president during the interview with the BBC.

He seized power in 1999, when he served as the chief of the country’s army.  Later, he became a key U.S. ally following the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Pakistan releases 141 Indian fishermen

Pakistan as a goodwill gesture has released one hundred and forty one more Indian fishermen here on Monday.
According to media reports Pakistan had freed some four hundred and forty six Indian fishermen from August 02 to date while one hundred and twenty eight are still imprisoned in different jails of the country.
According to officials, all the Indian fishermen were scheduled to be released but Indian authorities showed slackness in this regard saying they could not take as much people from Wahga Border.
On the other hand, Chairman Legal Aid Committee, Justice (Ret) Nasir Aslam along with a delegation left to India for release of Pakistani fishermen locked up in the Indian jails. The delegation will meet President of ruling Congress party, Sonya Gandhi and discuss the matter with her for early release of captive fishermen.

The hunt for Faisal Shahzad

Faisal Shahzad

It begins in Peshawar:

All day, there was heavy traffic outside house number 139 on Street 6 in Peshawar’s posh locality of Hayatabad.

The gate was padlocked but that didn’t seem to deter visitors. “Security was very tight all day and there were lots of foreigners, policemen as well intelligence agency types in and around the area all day,” says one area resident.

The house is said to belong to Baharul Haque, a former vice air marshal with the Pakistan Airforce. But the interest in Haque stems from the fact that he is the father of Faisal Shahzad, the US citizen being held in America in connection with a failed bombing attempt in New York’s Times Square.

Leading the investigation is the Special Investigation Group (SIG) of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), headed by SIG commandant Khalid Qureshi. Earlier in the day, the US ambassador in Pakistan Anne W Patterson had called the interior minister and asked for help in this case.

Malik assured the ambassador of full co-operation and promptly tasked the SIG. But the details emerging so far are sketchy. Shahzad is said to hail from a village near Pabbi called Mohib Banda . Locals in Pabbi say that Shahzad’s family shifted to Peshawar some 20 years ago.

Shahzad is thought to have pursued graduation studies from the Pakistan Air Force Government Degree College in Peshawar before leaving for the US to pursue business studies.

The US passport is proof he got naturalised during his stay in the US and he is said to have visited Pakistan several times over the years. (However, immigration authorities claim they have no information on the man.) It was on one of these visits two or three years ago, he’s said to have gotten married to a girl from either Mardan or Charsadda.

His in-laws are said to be resident in Peshawar too. “Shahzad recently came to Pakistan for a month,” says a senior intelligence official privy to the investigations being held throughout the country. “He landed in Islamabad on July 3, 2009 via an Emirates flight and left the country to go back to the US on August 5, 2009,” he said.

The address on the disembarkation card was house number 3, Sector I 8/3 in Islamabad, says the official. Shahzad is said to have travelled to several locations in the country during his brief visit but officials say they don’t have an exact record as he travelled on buses and coaches. He is also said to have visited his wife and child in Karachi.

Times Square bombing:

But intelligence officials are tightlipped when asked about the whereabouts of the family. Understandably, everyone seems to be in a bid to distance themselves from Shahzad. Baharul Haque’s relatives in Hayatabad insist they have no official confirmation that the man arrested in the US is indeed his son. Nor is the airforce willing to confirm that Haque was ever one of them.

The spokesperson for the Pakistan Airforce Air Commodore Tariq Qamar Yazdani said he doesn’t know any air force officer named Baharul Haq and refused to check further.

Meanwhile, the immediate family has disappeared into thin air, even as the security apparatus conducts a crackdown on Shahzad’s friends and suspected collaborators. Two people have been arrested from Karachi in connection with the case. One is Tauseef Ahmed, who’s said to be Shahzad’s cousin and Iftikhar, who’s supposed to be Shahzad’s father-in-law. And another four are said to have been arrested from Islamabad.

There are also reports of another friend, Muhammad Rehan, having been arrested from Karachi. Official sources say Shahzad had stayed with Rehan in Karachi and both had travelled together to Peshawar.

Agencies add:

Meanwhile, in the US, prosecutors have formally filed terrorism charges against Shahzad. The 10-page criminal complaint accuses Shahzad of five charges, including that of attempting “to use a weapon of mass destruction” to kill people in the crowded centre of New York on Saturday. Shahzad was arrested from JFK airport in New York on Monday. He was on an Emirates flight to Dubai after the attempted bombing of Times Square. The plane was taxiing just before midnight when air traffic called it back and the 30-year-old Pakistani-born US citizen was caught.

Sania Mirza And Shoaib’s Wedding Will Affect Their Commercial Value

Celeb-couple endorsement usually means twice the fire power for a brand. While newly-weds Sania and Shoaib’s entry into the couple-endorsement bandwagon as brand ambassadors for Pakistan Population Welfare Ministry is far from glamorous, pundits are on a wait-and-watch to gauge whether the controversies preceding their wedding will affect their commercial value. Ad gurus believe that the duo will ‘sell’ as Brand Shoania, if they perform well in their respective fields.

Big daddy of advertising, Prahlad Kakkar reminds us that brand value is inextricably linked to performance in a celebrity’s field, “Neither of them are doing well. Sania’s injured and Shoaib, I believe, is under a ban. But controversies apart, the two are very young, are sport icons and have the potential to click as a brand together.”

Renowned ad maker Alyquee Padamsee agrees, “Like in the case of any player, the duo’s brand value goes up only if they play well. For example, Sachin Tendulkar’s brand value only goes higher as he plays better. Even in the case of Tiger Woods, if he plays well, in spite of the controversies he’ll sell.”

However, the power-of-two trend is losing its novelty value Padamsee observes, so it’s important to actually grab eyeballs, “Bips and John started the trend which was new hence many sponsors came forward. Sania and Shoaib don’t command news value. Sponsors will stay away and may approach the duo if they play well and stay out of controversies.”

Sandeep Kumar, a graduate of Bhavan’s college brings up a couple-coup from off the playing field, “Remember, they do have the Indo-Pak alliance advantage. They may be approached by organisations trying to foster peace. But nothing soon, as people don’t believe the marriage will last long. Only time will tell.”

And there are those who feel that even notoriety can bring fame. Smita Chowdhary, an employee of Google, says, “Branding works on face value, not on controversies. Take for instance Rahul Mahajan’s Swayamvar. His show was a hit despite the controversies. I think Shoania will sign good deals.” But what if the couple does split after they’ve signed endorsements together? “Then companies will replace one of them with someone else just as Kareena-Shahid were replaced by John and Bips after they split.”

Naming Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa to cost Pakistan Rs.8 bn

Official documentation to rename Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would cost the provincial government more than Rs.5 billion and the federal government Rs.3 billion.

The stationery already printed and lying in printing press and official departments including the Governor House, the Chief Minister House and the offices of the corps commander, chief secretary and the home minister office would now be wasted, Online news agency reported, quoting official sources.

All this stationery, which cost more than Rs.4 billion would be junked after the distribution of new stationery in official departments. 

Work on rewriting the province name on official documents and signages would start soon. The provincial government would also hold talks with the governments in Balochistan, Punjab, Sindh, Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan asking them to rename the NWFP as Khyber-Pukhtoonkhwa.

Pakistan’s National Assembly or the lower house of parliament Thursday passed a constitutional amendment striping President Asif Ali Zardari of his sweeping powers and also effected the name change.

Is it Democracy? by Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)

Raza Rabbani’s Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Reforms (PCCR) toiled for nine months and held 75 meetings some lasting for ten hours at a stretch to formulate the 95 changes to be incorporated as the 18^th amendment to the1973 constitution. When all looked done and accomplished when MNS dropped the bomb at the last moment. Well, who is this gentleman and how can he do it? Legally and constitutionally asking, what office does he hold in the PML (N) to do what he has done? If none, then in what capacity he held the press conference torpedoing the whole affair? And, ironically, he called such an unexpected move as part of the democratic process! What kind of democracy is this where a person not even an office holder in a political party can over rule every one in the party including the duly appointed party members to the PCCR?  Can such a practice be called democratic in any way by any stretch of imagination? Agreed he is the Quaid of the party but does that give him the democratic powers to over rule his own party members to the PCCR who had agreed to the draft bill. Gandhi held the same status and even more in All India Congress but did he ever take any decision over ruling the party officials? He could advise only and it may surprise many that his advice was not always adhered to. He had to resort to Maran Bart (Hunger Strike till death) when his advice to transfer funds from the Reserve Bank of India to newly created Pakistan as her share was not heeded to by the Nehru government. But, here a non-official of a political party is calling the shots entirely all by himself. Or, does he hold some secret office in the party, that we do not know of and which he cannot disclose for the fear of the ten year ban placed upon him to abstain from politics by the Saudi Monarch? And, then we have the cheek to berate the military dictators at our every publ! ic appea rance and dedicate our every action as a service to the masses in the name of democracy.

Is it Democracy? I wonder.

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)
30, Werstridge-1

pakistani girls mobile number?

I get a chance today to attended a Google conference in Bahria University Islamabad where i saw many top bloggers of Pakistan. During the discussion, we found that the most burning keyword searched by our Pakistani people is “pakistani girls mobile number“.  Everyone there had a response on their faces, some people were laughing, some people were thinking and some were disappointed.

What is our people doing?

Why a girl mobile number is important for everyone?

Is this what our people want?

What we want to achieve?

PAK AMBASSADOR’S FAMILY IN SYRIA

The new Pakistani ambassador to Syria, appointed by President Zardari, has summarily sacked the entire staff and faculty of the Pakistan International School in Damascus and appointed almost all his immediate family members for a collective monthly salary of $38,000 (Rs3.2 million).

The sacked teachers and staff members of the school run by the embassy, who were removed for no reasons and without any prior notice, have been compelled to go into litigation against the Pakistan Embassy, The News has learnt.

The Pakistan International School in Damascus is run by the embassy of Pakistan but within five months after the arrival of new ambassador, Aminullah Raisani, in September 2009, the management and faculty of the school was changed altogether without giving any reason and the school was stuffed with the relatives of the ambassador.

According to the list of newly inducted teachers Saeeda Yasmeen Raeesani has been appointed as Principal. She is sister of the ambassador and is drawing $6,500 per month as salary while the previous principal Syed Tauseef Bokhari was getting $2,500. Another sister, Ms Abbas, has been appointed as Urdu teacher for $3,500 per month.

Two daughters, Amna Aminullah Raeesani and Quratulein Aminullah Raeesani, have been appointed as teachers. These two are getting $3,000 per month as salary while the school was paying only $1,700 for the same job to previous teachers.

Mohammad Ishaque, brother-in-law of the ambassador, has been appointed as accountant for $3,500 per month while the same job was previously with one Imran for just $900 a month.

Attique-ur-Rehman and Syed Muhammad Ali, ambassador’s nephews, have been appointed as business teachers for $3,000 a month while the same job was done for $1,500 only before September 2009.

Nayla Atiq, granddaughter of ambassador’s sister, is working as Maths teacher for $3,000 a month while her predecessor was drawing $1,700 a month as salary. Ali Abdullah, the son-in-law of ambassador’s sister, and Muhammad Ahsan Shafique, ambassador’s cousin, have been appointed as teachers for $3,000 a month while their predecessors were drawing $1,500 a month.Another cousin of the ambassador, Rasheed Chattha, has been appointed as biology teacher for $3,500 a month while previously Ms Manal Sileman was doing the same job for $1,500 a month.

Ms Manal Sileman, one of the Syrian teachers of the Pakistani school who has been sent home without giving any notice and without any reason, while talking to The News from Damascus on phone said that it was strange that an ambassador instead of running the affairs of the embassy was keen in the business of the school.

She lamented that the ambassador has imported Chinese shoes and made it mandatory for every student to purchase those shoes at much higher rates. She said that the school was being ruined as the new incompetent teachers have been hired for more than double the salaries the previous faculty was getting.

Another teacher Saad al Hassan said that he has gone to the court with a heavy heart because he has served the school and Pakistan and now the court will issue an order against the Republic of Pakistan.

He said that he has respect for the Pakistani nation but because of a few people he has been compelled to go into litigation against the embassy and according to the Syrian laws the Pakistan Embassy in Damascus could be heavily penalised.

Saad said that the school was rated among the best in Damascus and the elite, including the foreign minister of Syria and deputy foreign minister, had started sending their kids to the Pakistan International School of Damascus but with the advent of new administration many have opted for other schools in the city.

He said that last year the school won eight gold medals in the Cambridge examination and the income of the school in 2006 was US$2,042,400 per annum and it rose to $4,774,000 per annum in 2009 with the number of students almost doubled i.e. from 600 to 1,100.

Ambassador Aminullah Raisani was too busy to talk to this correspondent. However his spokesman Zahid Ali who works as Counsellor in the embassy denied all these allegations. He said that the previous management was incompetent that was why it was sent packing while competent people have now been inducted in the school.

Zahid said that it was not true that the newly appointed teachers were drawing more salaries than the previous management. “We write to the Foreign Office of Pakistan about our tasks here,” Zahid replied when asked about some teachers going into litigation against the embassy.

Indus TV Channel reporter doing funny reporting.

Who is Afraid of Aafia Siddiqui ?

BOSTON MAGAZINE

WHO’S AFRAID OF AAFIA SIDDIQUI?
She went to MIT and Brandeis, married a Brigham and Women’s physician, made her home in Boston, cared for her children, and raised money for charities. Aafia Siddiqui was a normal woman living a normal American life. Until the FBI called her a terror.

BY KATHERINE OZMENT

The men were ready. They knew the woman who would be joining them for the week was a high-profile Al Qaeda operative. They’d been told she should be treated with the utmost respect. She would arrive in Liberia’s bustling capital, Monrovia, on a plane from Quetta, Pakistan. She was to be driven to the safe house, the Hotel Boulevard, where other Al Qaeda figures had stayed, and taken good care of until the deal was done.

The trip from the airport was a hot hour long, and the woman spoke in English to the driver on the way. The driver, who would later become the chief informant in a United Nations-led investigation, described her as a quiet Islamic woman who wore a traditional headscarf and kept mostly to herself. She spent the week holed up in her room, making trips into town for small errands.

About a week after her arrival, the woman left Monrovia as quietly as she had entered, but now she had what she had come for: a large parcel containing gems from Africa’s illegal diamond trade. They would be used as a convenient, hard-to-trace way of funding Al Qaeda’s global terror operations. It was mid-June 2001, three months before September 11.

The men never saw the woman again in person. But earlier this year, one of them says, he saw two photographs of her. At a news conference in May, Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller III announced that the FBI was looking for seven people with suspected ties to Al Qaeda. MIT graduate and former Boston resident Aafia Siddiqui was the only woman on the list. After the photos of her appeared on television, the informant picked up the phone and dialed investigators at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, which is examining Africa’s illegal diamond trade. The informant was convinced that the woman in the photographs was the woman who had come to Liberia.

Now imagine this: The woman in the photographs, Aafia Siddiqui, the same week,mid-June, 2001. She is a 29-year-old mother of two, consumed, like other Boston moms who volunteer or work outside the home, with the minutiae of everyday life. A deeply religious woman, she picks up Korans from a local mosque and distributes them to inmates in area prisons. She hosts play groups in her apartment on the 20th floor of the Back Bay Manor in Roxbury. She takes her sister Fowzia’s child into her care while Fowzia finishes a fellowship in neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She does the grocery shopping and prepares meals for her children and husband, an anesthesiologist at Brigham and Women’s.

This is what Aafia Siddiqui’s family says she was really doing during the summer of 2001. Not brokering diamond deals for Al Qaeda with murderous brutes from the killing fields of Africa, but hosting play groups in her apartment.
“Aafia Siddiqui was here in June 2001,” says the family’s attorney, Elaine Whitfield Sharp. “And I can prove it.”

Sharp is best known as one of the lawyers who defended Louise Woodward, the English nanny found guilty of shaking infant Matthew Eappen to death in 1997. If she can prove Siddiqui wasn’t in Liberia that week, she’ll damage one of the most puzzling cases of alleged terrorism to emerge from the ashes of 9/11. The claim that Siddiqui was involved in diamond trading is another in a series of sometimes surprising, sometimes vague accusations by government officials. In Siddiqui’s case, the allegations have been further clouded by the often inaccurate, even hyperbolic descriptions of her by the media.

To those who knew her, Aafia Siddiqui was a kind, quiet woman living the normal life of a Pakistani expat in Boston. To the FBI, which displayed her photograph at that press conference in May, she was a suspected terrorist with ties to a chief mastermind of 9/11 — and the knowledge, skills, and intention to continue Al Qaeda’s terror war in the United States and abroad. Could one woman embody such diametrically opposed identities? Who is the real Aafia Siddiqui?
And where has she gone? Born in Karachi, Pakistan, on March 2, 1972, Aafia was one of three children of Mohammad Siddiqui, a doctor trained in England, and Ismet, a homemaker. You might think the daughter who eventually got into MIT was the smart one in the family, but her siblings are just as accomplished. Mohammed, Aafia’s brother, is an architect living in Houston with his wife, a pediatrician, and their children. Fowzia, Aafia’s sister, is a Harvard-trained
neurologist who was working at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore until she decided to go back to Pakistan.

Aafia Siddiqui moved to Texas in 1990 to be near her brother and had good enough grades after spending a year at the University of Houston to transfer to MIT. She requested a room in the university’s only all-female dorm, McCormick Hall, which consists of two modern, block-like towers set along the Charles.Siddiqui’ s fellow students say she was a quiet, studious woman who was devout in her religious beliefs but not a fundamentalist. She often wore a headscarf, for example, but didn’t cover her face.

“She was religious, but that wasn’t unusual in McCormick,” says a former MIT student who lived in the dorm at the time. “She was just nice and soft- spoken,” says Marnie Biando, a student who worked at the front desk. “She wasn’t terribly assertive.”

While at MIT Siddiqui apparently joined an association for Muslim students. She wrote three guides for members who wanted to teach others about Islam. On the group’s website, Siddiqui explained how to run a daw’ah table, an informational booth used at school events to educate people about, and persuade them to convert to, Islam. Some of what Siddiqui wrote — about needing enough money to buy Islamic literature and posterboard — sounds like a handout for a PTA meeting.

Other references, however, reveal a passion for Islam that could be called hard line. In the guides she wrote, “Imagine our humble, but sincere daw’ah effort turning into a major daw’ah movement in this country! Just imagine it! And us, reaping the reward of everyone who accepts Islam through this movement, through years to come . . . Think and plan big.” So big was her thinking that she envisioned an outcome that might surprise many of her adopted countrymen: “May Allah give this strength and sincerity to us so that our humble effort continue, and expands until America becomes a Muslim land.”

Even in her academic pursuits, Siddiqui’s sights were trained on her faith. A biology major, in her sophomore year she won a $5,000 grant to study the effects of Islam on women in Pakistan.

A photo of her on graduation day shows an attractive woman smiling beside the Charles River. She wears a simple necklace and dangling earrings. It’s easy to understand why students who knew her were so surprised to hear her name on the nightly news. In the perpetually updated photo gallery of terrorist suspects that has made its way into our living rooms since 9/11, her face is among the most angelic.

Sometime after their daughter’s graduation, Siddiqui’s parents, concerned about her prospects for marriage, went out and found her a husband. Mohammed Amjad Khan seemed like a great catch. The son of a wealthy family and a medical student, he, like Siddiqui, was a well-educated Pakistani trying to make a life for himself in Boston. He also shared Siddiqui’s faith but did not seem threatened by her desire for a career.

Siddiqui, after all, wasn’t done with school. She entered Brandeis University as a graduate student in cognitive neuroscience. Though media reports in the past year have erroneously given her such technical-sounding titles as microbiologist, geneticist, and neurologist, the truth is that Siddiqui’s training didn’t lend itself easily to the type of terrorist acts that haunt us in our worst nightmares.

“They started with the whole idea that Aafia was involved in biochemical warfare,” says Sharp. “She wasn’t taking brain cells and testing how they reacted to gases. But there’s all this news in the media about the changing face of Al Qaeda and the neurobiology scare, and now we’ve got this MIT graduate with a Brandeis Ph.D. who’s cooking up all these viruses.”

What Siddiqui was actually cooking up at Brandeis was more mundane. Her graduate work was based on a simple concept: that people learn by imitation. To study this, she devised a computer program and used adult volunteers, who came to her office and watched various objects move randomly across the screen, then reproduced what they recalled. The point was to see how well they retained the information having seen it on the screen.

Paul DiZio, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at Brandeis who was on Siddiqui’s dissertation committee, laughs when asked if such work could be applied to Al Qaeda operations. “I can’t see how it can be applied to anything,” he says. “It’s not very applied work. It didn’t have a medical aspect to it. And, as a computer expert, she was competent. But you know, calling her a mastermind or something does not seem — I never saw any evidence.”

What DiZio did see evidence of was Siddiqui’s obvious passion for Islam. “She made many references to her faith in scientific conversations, ” he says. “When presenting a proposal about how some results would come out and whether they would support her theory, she would say, ‘Allah willing.’” Though such comments may have seemed strange in an academic setting, DiZio says there was nothing radical about Siddiqui. “She just seemed like a very kind person.”

She was also a person whose life was rapidly changing. DiZio recalls asking Siddiqui what she would do after earning her Ph.D. “She said something about how she had commitments to her children and her family, and that this is the way it was,” he says. Somehow, Siddiqui’s plan for a career outside the home had been lost.
By the time Siddiqui finished her dissertation, she and Khan, who was nearing the end of his residency at Brigham and Women’s, had two children.According to Sharp, the couple was beginning to argue over how to raise them. “Aafia wanted to live in the West,” Sharp says the family told her,adding that Khan wanted to return to Pakistan and raise the children as conservative Muslims. When Siddiqui’s parents had arranged their daughter’s marriage to Khan, they were under the impression that he was progressive. Now they were worried.

Hassan Abbas, a Pakistani visiting scholar at Harvard Law School and the author of the recently published Pakistan’s
Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America’s War on Terror, remembers the story of the couple’s marital troubles differently. Once, when speaking with a colleague of Khan’s who worked at Massachusetts General Hospital, Abbas was told Siddiqui was the more fundamentalist of the two. But he never met her. When he moved to Boston in 2001, Abbas tried to set up a network of Pakistani academics and hoped to add Siddiqui to his listserv. “To my
surprise,” he says, “despite my good contacts and friendships, nobody was willing to say even a single word about her.”

What is known about the couple is that they lived with their children on the 20th floor of Roxbury’s Back Bay Manor, a popular housing choice for medical residents and foreigners seeking medical treatment because of its proximity to the city’s hospitals. The apartment was home base for a nonprofit organization the two started with Fowzia in 1999, called the Institute of Islamic Research and Teaching.

The Mosque for the Praising of Allah in Roxbury is a simple brick building with a double arched doorway out front and a Middle Eastern café next door. In his cluttered second-floor office, Abdullah Faruuq, the mosque’s imam, crams his tall body behind his desk and crosses his stocking feet on a chair in front of him.

“What I know of her,” he says, “is that she was living here in America, and her organization was for sharing Islamic information with the American people.”
Siddiqui ordered Korans and other books to be distributed to prisons and on school campuses. Boxes of them would arrive at Faruuq’s mosque, and he’d wait for her to come pick them up. Though she was a small woman, Siddiqui never asked for help carrying the heavy boxes down the steep flight of stairs.

Faruuq was impressed with Siddiqui’s devotion but says she wasn’t a radical. “‘As long as it’s not evil, I can do it,’” he says, paraphrasing what Siddiqui herself might have said of her acceptance of the western world.”‘I show my hands, show my face. I drive my own car. I have my credit cards.’ She had all of that. She was an American girl. Put that down: AafiaSiddiqui was an American girl. And a good sister.”

Siddiqui’s missionary work stemmed from her belief that it was her duty to bolster the Muslim community around her. “She was always very frustrated here that Muslims were not addressing the needs of their community,” says a woman who was a student of Siddiqui’s. “She said we needed to be doing more to help our people and that we needed to address the needs of the community.” She says Siddiqui wanted her husband to use his medical skills to help the less fortunate.

From village to google on wheel chair…. real Inspiration

To The Sons and Daughters of Earth

Celebrating Valentine’s day is haram and forbidden

Pakistani Presbyterian bishop to help prosecute leading jurist for murder of Catholic girl Shazia Masih

Lahore, Pakistan, Feb 12, 2010 / 02:48 am (CNA).- A prominent Presbyterian bishop in Pakistan will lead a team of lawyers following the case of Shazia Bashir, a 12-year-old Catholic girl allegedly tortured, raped and killed on Jan. 22 by a wealthy Muslim lawyer in Lahore.

Bishop Timothy Nasir, Moderator of the United Presbyterian Church in Pakistan, is a canonist and jurist and rector of the Theological Seminary of Gujranwala. Fides reports that he is a well-known newspaper columnist and defender of religious minorities.

His appointment was reportedly necessary because of pressures and threats surrounding proceedings against the accused murderer, Choudry Naeem.

Shazia Bashir, a house maid from Lahore, had been working as a domestic laborer for Naeem for eight months at a salary equivalent to about $12 per month. She was reported to be the only source of income for her impoverished family even though child labor is illegal in the country.

Her parents asked to see her multiple times but were denied visitation. They were finally allowed to visit and found her in serious condition.

Bashir was taken to Jinnah Hospital in Lahore, where medical personnel reportedly discovered evidence of torture and rape. The girl later died at the hospital.

Her employer Naeem, former President of the High Court of Lahore, is an influential figure who has close relations with the Pakistani army, the Punjab government, and the Pakistani Muslim League (Nawaz). Recently lawyers associations and trade unions have defended him.

He was alleged to have offered Shazia’s family the equivalent of $250 to keep silent.

There have been threats and acts of intimidation against lawyers who would side with Shazia Bashir, Fides reports. An initial hearing called by the magistrate had been postponed because no lawyer represented the victim’s family, who was pressing the charges.

Doctors serving Naeem’s defense team have argued there were no signs of torture or rape on Bashir’s body. There are fears Punjab authorities want the case thrown out or manipulated to save Naeem.

Associations defending the rights of Christians say they will “not let the case of Shazia go unpunished.”

“The presence of a prominent figure like Bishop Nasir to follow the case, presents a guarantee and a hope for us all,” sources with the Church in Pakistan tell Fides.