Pakistan political leader Imran Khan today pledged his full support behind a Cageprisoners' campaign to help a female detainee known only as The Grey Lady of Bagram.Horrific but totally predictable from the administration who brought us Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Prisons.
Details of the woman, known only as Prisoner 650, are being kept secret by the US Military, but at a press conference yesterday Khan and several human rights activists demanded justice for her.
Leading the attack was Cageprisoners' patron Yvonne Ridley who first read an account of the woman in Moazzam Begg's gripping account of his own detention in his book Enemy Combatant.
"I remembered Moazzam telling me about the woman's scream and how he first imagined they could be from his wife. In truth I thought may be he had just been listening to a tape recorder as part of a form of mental torture.
"However, we now know the screams came from a woman who has been held in Bagram for some years. And without compromising anyone, we can also reveal from impeccable sources that her prison number is 650.
Update 7/10: A commenter mentioned a petition to help free Prisoner 650.
Update 8/17: Diane of Cab Drollery:
And I strongly suspect that Prisoner No. 650 is none other than Dr Aafia Siddiqui. It is quite possible that her captors decided to end her isolation after the Pakistani Press and activists like Yvonne Ridley began increasingly talking about the Prisoner No. 650 and how she was tortured and abused physically, mentally and sexually for the past four years.
Pure speculation by Yvonne Ridley and Aijaz Zaka Syed? Perhaps. Anti-American rhetoric by a disgruntled Arab? It's certainly possible. Ten years ago I would have dismissed this report out of hand. After all, surely no civilized government would behave in such a fashion, and, if it did, surely our free press would have gone through walls to uncover the behavior.
That was ten years ago. Now, I'm not so sure.
Let's go back to that NY Times article:
The lawyer, Elizabeth M. Fink, told the judge that the allegation that her client, who the lawyer said weighed 90 pounds, had picked up the rifle and attacked the Americans, was “patently absurd.” [Emphasis added]
The article also mentions the disappearance of Dr. Siddiqui in 2003 and the contention by her lawyers that she was held by the Americans. The article states only that US authorities denied the detention.
And, as far as I can tell, that's the last of the coverage of Dr. Siddiqui's case in the NY Times or any other news outlet. One would think that the unusual circumstances of a woman terrorist, trained in the US, alleged to have close ties with the very organization blamed for 9/11 would have launched an avalanche of stories, you know, like the avalanche of stories on Dr. Ivins, the presumed anthrax terrorist. Instead ... crickets.
