Terming the meeting of Dr Fowzia Siddiqui with her jailed sister Dr Aafia Siddiqui after twenty long years, as the silver lining, Pasban Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Altaf Shakoor here Wednesday said that the recent efforts would hopefully lead to an early release of the daughter of the nation. The two sisters met at FMC CarswellFort Worth, Texas, on May 30, 2023 after long 20 years. A release of Aafia Movement says that it was a glass door meeting.
They were not allowed a first hug, or even to touch, after two decades. Fowzia was forbidden to share the photographs of Aafia’s son and daughter, both now in their twenties.
The background music for the meeting was the periodic rattle of the heavy prison keys. Fowzia was obviously shocked by the state of her younger sister. Aafia was led in, dressed in a tan prison uniform, and a white headscarf. Her upper teeth missing from one prison assault, She had difficulty hearing due to a beating she had taken around the head. She spent the first hour detailing the daily trauma in her life.
Eventually, her lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, who was present to facilitate the meeting, encouraged her to talk to her sister about her loved ones, at least for this afternoon. “I miss my family every day. My mother, my father, you (my sister), my children, I think of them all the time,” said Aafia. She and her sister swapped stories for two and a half hours. All of Aafia’s tales of her children were from 2003, permanently frozen in at the moment she was abducted in Karachi.
“It was deeply depressing, but nevertheless a privilege, to be present for this emotional reunion,” said Clive Stafford Smith. “But the importance of these visits is, as Aafia makes very clear, how we can get her home from the hell of her current existence.”
However, Altaf Shakoor hoped that the recent efforts of the human rights attorney Clive Stafford Smith and cooperation of the Pakistani government would result in some positive outcome and soon Dr Aafia Siddiqui would be released from the US prison.
