The verdict’s fallout

THE verdict in the case of Dr Afia Siddiqui, convicting her of attempted murder, has caused more problems for the USA than it has solved. It finds itself held responsible for a poor woman, broken in health, deprived of her children, imprisoned wrongfully before and now facing more imprisonment, highly educated but forced to rot in jail because of her views, which the USA has branded terrorist.
Dr Siddiqui is the citizen of a country supposedly a US ally, but it has done little enough for her, or the recovery of her missing children. The President may have ordered the government to contact the family and provide all possible legal aid for her appeal, but it will be noted that he did so only after the whole country erupted in protest over the verdict. If the verdict does not remove any last vestiges of trust in the American justice system, then the question arises as to why the government reserved for the appellate stage, as now, what it did not provide at the trial. The President has expressed confidence in the American justice system, which may be interpreted as saying that Pakistan will not demand, as it should, that Dr Siddiqui be tried in Pakistan. If she can be tried in the USA over events in Afghanistan, because the alleged assault was supposed to have taken place on American citizens, by the same token she can be tried in Pakistan. Instead of viewing this demand as an expression of lack of confidence in the American justice system, its rejection should be seen as an expression of no-confidence in Pakistan’s. But this needs, first of all, for the demand to be made, not expressions of confidence.