Peddle-a-Citizen Inc. - Babar Sattar

It is not that Pakistan and the US do not have a sufficient basis for exchanging fugitives under the formal extradition framework. The two countries also have a treaty arrangement too. An extradition treaty was signed between the US and the UK in London on Dec 22, 1931, and its provisions were extended to British India from March 9, 1942. As a successor state Pakistan inherited the treaty obligations. And after the Extradition Act entered into force on Feb 20, 1973, the Pakistani government formally endorsed the US-UK treaty for being in operation in Pakistan, in accordance with Section 3(1) of the Extradition Act. But why should the US bother to go through a formal extradition process with all its attendant procedural and substantive protections (read inconvenience) when the Pakistani government is more than pleased to sweep up citizens and foreigners alike in the name of fighting terror and cart them off to secret US detention centres across the globe?

It is true that the Bush administration has singlehandedly run into dirt the image of the US as a friend and advocate of rule of law. Human rights and civil liberties groups within the US are dismayed at the post-9/11 legislative acts and executive policies of the Bush administration and the substantive harm they have done to erode established standards of human rights protections around the globe. The infamous Patriot Act is one such measure. On Nov 13, 2001, President Bush passed the Military Order – “Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against terrorism” – under which non-US nationals can be meted out military justice at the president’s discretion: tried in a military court devoid of ordinary procedural protections; detained in conditions prescribed by the Secretary of Defence; and with no right of appeal before any court of law.

But Dr Siddiqui’s life, liberty and dignity would not have been at the mercy of the US had she not been wronged by the Musharraf regime in the first place. There is no point directing all our ire against the Yanks when it is actually our saviours at home who are culpable in the first resort. Did Chaudhary Pervaiz Elahi feel no shame while shedding crocodile tears in the Parliament over the treatment being meted out to Afia Siddiqui, despite the fact that she was kidnapped and hauled to Afghanistan under his government’s watch. Instead of passing hollow resolutions against the US to reclaim the nation’s honour, the parliament should (a) order an inquiry into the kidnapping of Afia Siddiqui, (b) ensure that all other missing persons are accounted for immediately, and (c) include in the charge-sheet against the General his admission of carting individuals to the US in utter disregard of our legal and constitutional provisions.