India: Free Aafia Siddiqui's 11-Year Old Son

Child Is Too Young to Be Treated as Criminal Suspect
Vanida Chithtamath
Soc 202-01 T/R

The website Human Rights Watch reported an article where they wrote concerns to the Afghan government where they believe that the government should turn over the costody of one of their youngest captive. Ahmed Siddiqui who is a U.S. citizen is the son of Aafia Siddiqui, the two were arrested togerther in Afghanistan. According to the Afghan Internal Ministries reports, they two were detained for a brief moment then were handed over to the Afghan National Security Directorate(NDS), from then on the whereabouts of these two is uncertain. The issue that arrise in this situation is that Ahmed Siddiqui is only 11 years old, even though he was instructed under his mother's direction he is legally too young under Afghan law to be kept as a suspect. His mother Aafia Siddiqui was charged with trying to assult and kill U.S. officials. The actions of his mother was wrong but it the Human Rights Watch organization is more concern for the safety of the children. Aafia Siddiqui not only disappeared but her children Ahmed(11), Mariam(10), and Suleman(5) has also went missing. The Afghan government has denied her whereabouts and the United States agrees that Siddiqui poses a threat to the United States but refuses to admit that they have anything to do with her disappearance. HRW is only trying to bring the missing grandchildren back to the Siddiqui family who is awaiting to hear of good news of their missing grandchildren.
I personally think that it is unfair to blame the young children in this situation. For once the children were not martyrs, they only did the things that their mother told them to do. Ahmed should not be held accountable for his actions because under their humane laws a child must be of 13 years old before they can be tried as an adult and he was only 11 years old at the time. It is very unfortunate that this happened from the start, the family was sent to all random detention centers and no one kept any record or their well-being or if they are even being treated fairly in these places. This is an important story to keep on the look-out because they might be captives but they are also human and deserve to treated humanely.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/08/27/afghan19701.htm