Aafia speaks in the court

As a nation founded by one of the finest barristers, it should be the special mandate of the people of Pakistan to remind the world about the importance of law even if the rest of the world were to accept the norms of the jungle.

Last year on July 6, a British journalist broke the news that Dr. Aafia Siddiqui and her three minor children had been in the illegal secret custody of US authorities in Afghanistan for five years, and that Aafia had been subjected to rape and torture all this while. Exactly on the same date a year later, Judge Berman has conducted a hearing in a New York court where instead of being heard as a victim, Aafia is being tried as accused.

This Monday, Aafia was forced to appear in the court. “I am not a psychotic,” she told told the court which was trying to silence her. “I am sane, despite all your effort… I didn't shoot anybody… I am not against America – I never was. I am against the war… I am concerned for the lives that are being lost… I’m one of the very few people who have an insider’s view… I understand that there has been a misunderstanding. America as a nation has been framed to look bad.”

She shook her head in disagreement when the judge said that she was presumed innocent. As expected, Judge Burman didn’t rule on whether Aafia is fit to stand trial or not while the date of hearing has been shifted to October 19.

• Read further details in Jawad Rasul: Inside Edition, the Sydney Morning Herald and Archives of the Republic of Rumi

Cairo matters

When it comes to making bad allusions, nobody does it better than President Obama (reference to a previous post). In his widely televised speech in Cairo today, he illustrated the presence of Islam in the history of his country by mentioning that Morocco was the first to recognize the United States. It’s true, but more than a hundred year later the United States consented to the enslavement of this friend by European powers while “the oldest treaty of friendship” was still in tact. “The falcon of Morocco was trapped in the net of deception,” Iqbal commented (you can read the whole story in the second volume of my biography of Iqbal).

I am reminded of ‘Black Saturday’. On Friday, 25 January 1952, British troops patrolling the Suez killed 46 Egyptian policemen. Riots broke out in Cairo the very next day, rendezvous of European elite were burnt down and 17 British people got killed.

Cambridge scholar A. J. Arberry (1905-69) could be just one of many who reacted. In the preface of his next book he lamented the burning of Cairo (but not the death of 46 native policemen) and suggested that the influence of Iqbal and Pakistan must be contained if Western superiority is to be maintained over the East.

Arberry suggested that Pakistani and Muslim intellectuals themselves could be enlisted for the task. He was right. Pakistani academia turned out to be so hungry for recognition that they swooned upon reading that preface: a Western scholar had mentioned their country and their national poet! Unanimously, they declared Arberry to be “Iqbal’s disciple” and invited him periodically to deliver lectures about Iqbal, Quran and Muslim civilization.

Roxana Saberi: justice prevailed?

"Roxana Saberi: Out of Iranian Prison, Into a Soap Opera" was the headline at Yahoo! News. The Iranian-American who was convitced in Iran for spying has been released and, as expected, Western media is praising the right thing for the wrong reason.

It is sickening, really, to see the tag of "analysis" on pieces which shamelessly weigh the diplomatic and other benefits which Iran might gain out of this gesture. Is this how the fate of the accused will now be determined?

Iran aught to be condemned if it released Saberi due to any consideration other than justice and fairplay: another journalist accused of similar crimes served two years in prison while yet another is still languishing in an Iranian jail. Above all, it is grossly unfair to Saberi herself that her release should not be exploited by the media of her own country (i.e. the US) for restoring her prestige by focussing on her innocence.

When I first heard about Saberi's conviction, I could not help drawing a parallel between her case and that of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the alleged victim of rape and torture at the hands of American authorities who is now in the controversial custody of the Americans at Carswell. Both were women, the charges were disputed in both cases and there were reports of foul play by the authorities (it was reported in the case of Saberi that she was tricked into confessing her guilt). I hoped that the Iranian authorities would act more responsibly than their American counterparts. Let's hope that they have.

Iran is the proud heir to the double legacy of Zulqarnain and Islam. As such, it needs to set new standards for justice and fairplay in our times. The release of Saberi should be the beginning.

Iran's official verdict seems to be that the court's order was a gesture of "Islamic mercy." That should gain more attention and Iran should be encouraged to be persistent in that: we have heard about the tragic case of Delara Darabi who was recently executed in Iran in a manner which was unfair, to say the least (and she was also reported to have been tricked into confessing). Responsible media, whether Western or Eastern, should help ensure that such things don't happen again. For this, principles must be shown as a higher priority than diplomatic and material gains.

Even in terms of those gains, Iran has got more to lose than win through a reputation for buying American favors at the cost of principles: US is not exactly the most popular state in the world now. Outside Israel, many might have been respecting Iran for having a backbone. Bending over backwards could hurt that.

Obama’s Message to Iran: a Fruedian Slip?

Under the glaring subheading “Obama and Saadi” on the page of Sheikh Saadi, the Wikipedia tells us that the U.S. President Barack Obama quoted Saadi's Gulistan in a videotaped Nowruz (New Year's) greeting to the Iranian people in March 2009, saying, “There are those who insist that we be defined by our differences. But let us remember the words that were written by the poet Saadi, so many years ago: “The children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence.’”

Cute, isn’t it? Well, unfortunately, the quote comes from Story 10 of Chapter 1 in Gulistan. The story is about a cruel king who was afraid of a mighty enemy. He said to Saadi that since Sufis could connect so well with others, why wouldn't Saadi unite his mind with the king’s and do something for him? That is when Saadi retorted with the famous lines, pointing out the mideeds of the king himself!

The quote is famous: it also graces the entrance to the Hall of Nations in the UN building in New York but apparently the White House did some homework, because the translation is different and more accurate (taken from Richard Burton with a single modification).

Now that the ice is being broken between US and Iran, perhaps we could have had a much-awaited laughter if the Iranian President had returned the gesture by reading to the US Presdient the complete reply of Saadi:

With a powerful arm and the strength of the wrist
To break the five fingers of a poor man is sin.
Let him be afraid who spares not the fallen
Because if he falls no one will take hold of his hand.
Whoever sows bad seed and expects good fruit
Has cudgelled his brains for nought and begotten vain imaginations.
Extract the cotton from thy ears and administer justice to thy people
And if thou failest to do so, there is a day of retribution.
The sons of Adam are limbs of each other
Having been created of one essence.
When the calamity of time afflicts one limb
The other limbs cannot remain at rest.
If thou hast no sympathy for the troubles of others
Thou art unworthy to be called by the name of a man.

GTMO Lawyers Risk Detention

It seems that two GTMO attorneys face the risk of being detained "because of a letter they sent to President Obama explaining their client’s allegations of torture by US agents." They have been summoned before a D.C. court on May 11th.

The attorneys are Clive Stafford Smith and Ahmad Ghappour (Smith is the legal director of the UK charity Reprieve and has represented more than fifty Guantanamo Bay prisoners. He is author of Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice in Guantanamo Bay).

I came across this informtion at the blog One Heart for Peace, where more information is available.