Aafia being treated inhumanely in US custody: SM Zafar

LAHORE - Senator SM Zafar has said that Pakistani citizen Dr Aafia Siddiqui in US detention is facing inhumane and undignified treatment. She is in a very bad health after being badly tortured in custody particularly in Afghanistan, he added.

Senator Zafar who met Dr Aafia during his US visit as a member of the Senate team has urged the national and international human rights organisations to take up her case to seek that she should be given normal human treatment available to other inmates in US custody. He said he learnt from the meeting with her that she did not expect fair justice from the US jury. “She is highly disturbed and weak yet she is confident and thankful to Pakistan for taking up her case,” said SM Zafar while talking to The Nation.

Mr Zafar, head of the Senate Standing Committee on Human Rigts, Mushahid Hussain Syed, Chairman Foreign Affairs Committee of the Senate, Chairman Committee on Interior Senator Talha and Member Foreign Affairs Committee Sadia Abbasi on behalf of the government of Pakistan had met Aafia Siddiqui to find her condition and to examine as to how she could be helped in defending herself and ease her condition on humanitarian grounds.