Syed Hashmi, known to his family and friends as Fahad, was born in Karachi, Pakistan in 1980, the second child of Syed Anwar Hashmi and Arifa Hashmi. Fahad immigrated with his family to America when he was three years old. His father said “We knew there would be many opportunities for us here in the United States. We came here to find the American dream.” The large Hashmi family settled in Flushing, New York and soon developed deep roots throughout the tri-state area. Fahad graduated from Robert F Wagner High School in 1998 and attended SUNY Stony Brook University. He transferred to Brooklyn College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science in 2003. A devout Muslim, through the years Fahad established a reputation as an activist and advocate. In 2003, Fahad enrolled in London Metropolitan University in England to pursue a master’s degree in international relations, which he received in 2006. On June 6, 2006, Fahad was arrested in London Heathrow airport by British police based on an American indictment charging him with material support of Al Qaida . He was subsequently held in Belmarsh Prison, Britain’s most notorious jail.

The Charges
The US government accused Fahad of providing material support to Al Qaeda, but a close look at the evidence shows that the charges make little sense. Fahad is NOT charged with providing any money or resources to any terrorists or being a member of al Qaeda. Instead, the US government charged Fahad with allowing an old acquaintance — Junaid Babar — to stay in Fahad’s London apartment for about two weeks in 2004. During that two week period, Babar allegedly kept several raincoats, ponchos, and waterproof socks in luggage that Babar temporarily stored in Fahad’s apartment. The US government then alleges that at some point Babar gave the socks and ponchos to a high ranking member of al Qaeda. There is no allegation that Fahad is a member of al Qaeda or that he ever personally gave or helped to give anything to any member of al Qaeda.

Conditions of Fahad’s Imprisonment
Fahad was held in England’s Belmarsh prison mixed with the general prison population for 11 months without incident. Since his extradition to the United States more than a year ago, Fahad has been kept in solitary confinement and subject to unduly restrictive Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), These draconian measures mandate that he be kept under 23-hour lockdown, be allowed only one visit from an immediate family member a week, and have no other contact with anyone besides his lawyer and prison officials. The SAMs also limit the material that Fahad can read and make it illegal for his family members to pass any messages from him onto friends.
Fahad is not charged with any acts of violence, nor were there any accusations that he attempted to contact any terrorists during his time with the general prison population at Belmarsh, rendering the restrictions he is subject to unnecessarily cruel in a society that treats people as innocent until proven guilty. SAMs are meant to prevent crimes orchestrated from within prison walls, but even if EVERYTHING the government alleges is true, there is no evidence that Fahad would be a danger if he were kept with the general prison population.

The Evidence Against Fahad
Substantial evidence in the case will come from the testimony of Junaid Babar, the man who stayed at Fahad’s London apartment as a houseguest. There is evidence to show that Babar’s testimony may be unreliable. He has taken a plea bargain – he will receive a reduced sentence if he agrees to testify against people like Fahad. It is a common practice for the government to offer a deal to one defendant who’s accused of a lesser crime in order to convict a more serious criminal – in this case his testimony will be used try to convict somebody who gave him a place to sleep for two weeks.

Civil Liberties Concerns
Many in the civil liberties community are gravely concerned by the implications of Fahad’s case. Fahad is facing trumped-up charges as a result of his opinions. It is a dangerous precedent to make people responsible for the actions of their houseguests. Concern also surrounds the conditions of Fahad’s detention. Even were all the charges against him true, the SAMS measures would be unwarranted. The government should exercise extreme caution when deciding when to invoke such severe restrictions. He is in solitary confinement and subject to a regime of severe deprivation. Under the SAM imposed by the Attorney General, Hashmi must be held in solitary confinement and may not communicate with anyone inside the prison other than prison officials. Family visits were not granted for many months and are now limited to one person every other week for one and a half hours, and cannot involve physical contact. Mr. Hashmi may write only one letter (of no more than three pieces of paper) per week to one family member. He may not communicate, either directly or through his attorneys, with the news media. He may read only designated portions of newspapers – and not until thirty days after their publication – and his access to other reading material is restricted. He may not listen to or watch news-oriented radio stations and television channels. He may not participate in group prayer. He is subject to 24-hour electronic monitoring and 23-hour lockdown, has no access to fresh air, and must take his one-hour of daily recreation – when it is given – inside a cage.

Taken from Cageprisoners.com

Aafia Siddiqui was born in Karachi, Pakistan, on March 2, 1972. She was one of three children of Mohammad Siddiqui, a doctor trained in England, and Ismet. She is a mother of three.

Aafia moved to Texas in 1990 to be near her brother, and after spending a year at the University of Houston, transferred to MIT. Aafia then married Mohammed Amjad Khan, a medical student, and subsequently entered Brandeis University as a graduate student in cognitive neuroscience.

Citing the difficulty of living as Muslims in the United States after 9/11, Aafia and her husband returned to Pakistan. They stayed in Pakistan for a short time, and then returned to the United States. They remained there until 2002, and then moved back to Pakistan.

Some problems developed in their marriage, and Aafia was eight months pregnant with their third child when she and Khan were estranged. She and the children stayed at her mother’s house, while Khan lived elsewhere in Karachi.

After giving birth to her son, Aafia stayed at her mother’s house for the rest of the year, returning to the US without her children around December 2002 to look for a job in the Baltimore area, where her sister had begun working at Sinai Hospital.

Soon after Pakistani authorities arrested Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Aafia and her children disappeared. A report in the Pakistani Urdu press said that Aafiai and her kids had been seen being picked up by Pakistani authorities and taken into custody.

According to Mrs. Siddiqui, Aafia left her mother’s house in Gulshan-e-Iqbal in a Metro-cab on March 30, to catch a flight for Rawalpindi, but never reached the airport. Inside sources claim that Afia had been “picked-up” by intelligence agencies while on her way to the airport and initial reports suggest she was handed over to the FBI.

Aafia Siddiqui had been missing for more than a year when the FBI put her photographs on its website. The press was told that she was an Al Qaeda facilitator. After an FBI conference, a newspaper broke the story linking the woman involved in the 2001 diamond trade in Liberia to Aafia. The family’s attorney, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, says the allegation was a blessing in disguise because it places Siddiqui somewhere at a specific time. She says she can prove Siddiqui was in Boston that week.

In Pakistan, there has been no official report registered with the police regarding her disappearance, and the police are doing nothing to trace her. Mrs. Siddiqui alleges that an intelligence agency official came to her house a week after the incident, and warned her not to make an issue out of her daughter’s disappearance and threatened her with dire consequences.

Both the Pakistan government as well as US officials in Washington denied any knowledge of Aafia’s custody.

On 7th July 2008, a press conference led by Cageprisoners patron, Yvonne Ridley, and Director, Saghir Hussain, in Pakistan resulted in mass international coverage of Aafia’s case as her disappearance was questioned by the media and political figures in Pakistan. It was on 3rd August 2008 that an agent from the FBI visited the home of her brother in Houston, Texas and told him that she was being detained in Afghanistan.

On Monday 4th August 2008, federal prosecutors in the US confirmed that Aafia Siddiqui was extradited to the US from Afghanistan where they allege she had been detained since mid-July 2008. The US administration claims that she was arrested by Afghani forces outside Ghazni governor’s compound with manuals on explosives and ‘dangerous substances in sealed jars’ on her person. They further allege that whilst in custody she shot at US officers (none being injured) and was herself injured in the process.

According to her lawyer, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, “We do know she was at Bagram for a long time. It was a long time. According to my client she was there for years and she was held in American custody; her treatment was horrendous.”

Aafia’s claim is contrary to the heavily contested position of the US administration that she was detained in July by Afghan forces while attempting to bomb the compound of the governor of Ghazni. Her lawyers claim that the evidence was planted on her. The US has previously denied the presence of female detainees in Bagram and that Aafia was ever held there, bar for medical treatment in July 2008.

Aafia remains in a US detention facility in New York, in poor health, subjected to degrading and humiliating strip searches and cavity searches whenever she receives a legal visit or appears in court. She has subsequently refused to meet with counsel. It has been reported that she may suffer from brain damage and that a part of her intestine may have been removed. Her lawyers say her symptoms are consistent with a sufferer of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Saifullah Paracha
Saifullah Paracha has yet to be charged with any crime but has been in Guantanamo Bay for over 6 years.

Background [Taken from FreeParachas.org]

Saifullah Paracha was born in Pakistan, in 1947. He is married to Farhat (Pakistani) and they have four children – Uzair (28), Muneeza, (25), Mustafa, (18) and Zahra, (15). At the age of 26, Saifullah came to the US to study, where he later went on to work and to establish several businesses. He spent the next decade or so in America, with his family, law-abiding and tax-paying residents, and eventually Green Card holders.

They finally decided to settle in Pakistan in the mid-80’s, where he started a business, exporting clothes to the US, as well as a television production company. The family have visited the US frequently since, where Mr. Paracha’s business partner, Charles Antenby, is based. Not only a successful businessman, Saifullah Paracha became known the social work that consumed most of his time and energy.

He has been responsible for establishing new schools and hospitals, amongst them the hospital in his hometown, Mangowal, which continues to treat hundreds of patients daily, free of charge, as well as having worked extensively with Afghani refugees and orphans. He is a pleasant, amiable man, who is both tolerant and generous in nature. A loving father, and a devoted husband, “the kind a wife could call a good friend,” his wife, Farhat says.

On July 5th 2003, Saifullah Paracha was called to Thailand for a business meeting by his American partner, Mr. Antenby. He called his daughter from the airport, about to board his flight – the last time his family were to speak to him. Missing without a trace, Farhat and family spent an entire, agonising month in the dark, not knowing why or where her husband had disappeared to. She exhausted every avenue, filing petitions in the Sind High Court against the Pakistani Government, Thai Airways, Thai Consulate and the FIA (the Pakistani Intelligence Agency), demanding an explanation for her husband’s mysterious disappearance but to no avail since no organization would claim responsibility for Saifullah.

Precisely a month later, the first news finally came in a NBC broadcast on August 5th, covering the charges leveled against her son in the US, in which it was also reported that her husband was also held under US custody. By the end of the month, Farhat received a letter in Saifullah’s handwriting, through the International Committee of the Red Cross – he was being detained at the US Base, Bagram, Kabul, Afghanistan, notorious for denying legal access to the detainees, the US’s use of torture and the subsequent death of two detainees at the Base.

Saifullah is in his 60’s and suffers from a number of medical conditions, including diabetes, heart problems, and prostrate problems. In fact, Saifullah has had two heart attacks in US custody. Since that time, Farhat has been in irregular correspondence with her husband, writing at least twice at a week, though only five appear to have reached him. She, in turn, has only received five letters from him in seven months, unsure whether he writes under duress as he says little. Two of them in Bagram, and one in Guantanamo.

His health “has seriously deteriorated and could lead to his premature death if his pre-existing heart, prostatic and diabetic disease are not treated urgently.” Paracha’s lawyer, Gaillard T Hunt, suggested that “his medical treatment is at best incompetent and at worst negligent,” and painted a distressing picture of his client’s prospects, pointing out that several of his brothers and sisters have died of cardiac problems before reaching the age of 65, and that Paracha himself “has been having fainting spells, so we know the problem is worsening.”

Hunt went on to explain, “He couldn’t submit to a cardiac catheterization at Guantánamo because the rules require all prisoners in the hospital to be shackled to the four corners of the bed. The cardiologist said this was dangerous for a heart patient, but the prison administration would not compromise. (Andy Worthington)