Prelude: the Importance of International Law

By Khurram Ali Shafique

The woman in the picture on the right is not dressed to please the Taliban and she may not have a terrific mental wavelength with Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who wears hijab.

The issue over which she is holding a placard in a demonstration in Lahore (August 9, 2008) is human rights and international justice.

The people of Pakistan, mostly, do not demand an unconditional acquittal of Aafia, but they do demand, quite earnestly:

1. An internationally reliable inquiry into the allegations raised against the US authorities of illegal custody, rape and torture of Aafia
2. Conformity to the long respected norms of international justice in the case of Aafia and other accused and "abducted" persons

Ironically, Aafia means comprehensive safety in Arabic, Urdu and related languages. On March 30, 2003, a woman by that name "disappeared" from Karachi and was later reported as being raped and tortured in American custody in Afghanistan.

Questions were raised from the floor of the British Parliament and by the middle of July 2008 the issue received such prominence in media in Pakistan and outside, that it could no longer be ignored.

In early August, the American authorities produced Aafia in a court of law in the US. They claimed that she had been arrested in Afghanistan only on July 17 because she was found loitering around, carrying instructions about making a bomb in her purse.

This blog aims to highlight the case of the Pakistani nation, and to show what is at stake here. The contents, in the recommended order of reading, are as following:

• 1. Pakistan: the next Hiroshima?
• 2. The meaning of international law
• 3. The people of Pakistan
• 4. What we can do
• Afterword by Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Begin here: 1. Pakistan: the next Hiroshima?