McKinney and Flounders also visited press conferences and rallies in Peshawar, Lahore and Hyderabad in support of the release of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.
Pakistan American Democratic Forum, PADF, was the main initiator of American human right activists' visit to Pakistan. In a message on this occasion, Dr. Agha Saeed, founder president of the PADF, said:
"Today,
both Pakistan, the country of my origin, and the US, my adopted homeland, are
in deep turmoil. Yet there is one major, substantial, significant and
consequential difference between the two. To paraphrase Prof Ali Mazrui, one of
the most profound thinkers of this age, while Pakistan is a
"pre-democratic" country that is slowly transforming itself into
fledging democracy, the US is fast becoming a "post-democratic"
country, a country that is beginning to shed the foundational features of
democracy, namely, habeas corpus, due process and equal justice.
"Today,
while our most highly respected sister, Dr. Aafia, is the most prominent
"prisoner of war", Dr. Sami Al-Arian is the most distinguished
"political prisoner in the United States. The basic crisis of civil rights
today is not airport profiling but the denial of due process and of equality
before the law."
Today, we are participant-observers to the emergence of a truly "consequential" coalition between Muslim Americans and a wide array of fellow Americans, such as Congressperson Cynthia McKinney and Ms Sara Flounders, Dr. Agha Saeed concluded.
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