Guilty if charged

The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.
Not many in Pakistan had contemplated that 9/11 was going to change their world in such grim fashion. Certainly not Naufal Zamir Shiekh, the 32-year old Pakistani, working as the business development manager in the Kampala office of a Pakistan-based IT firm. On July 11, during the football world cup finals, ghastly bomb attacks ripped two restaurants in Kampala and claimed 76 lives. Somalia’s Al-Shabab group immediately assumed responsibility. On July 12, at 5.08 pm, an email landed in Naufal’s work inbox from the gmail account of one Abdi Karim Abdullahi Yusuf stating that “the leadership of Al-Shabab Muslim organisation in Uganda and back at the home base in Somalia would like to thank you for your willingness, commitment and strong heart for fighting towards the Muslim brotherhood.”
The email from Yusuf (claiming to be Al-Shabab’s spokesman) further expressed gratitude for “efforts” in relation to two attacks in Kampala. At 5.42 pm, the same day, Naufal forwarded the email to his company lawyer asking him to review the email and suggest appropriate action as he didn’t know who wrote and sent it. On July 13, Naufal, the company administration officer and their lawyer met with local police and shared the email. The police thanked them for the information and told them that they’d be in touch if they needed any further information or assistance. On July 16, two journalists came to visit Naufal at the office after receiving an email from the same gmail account of Yusuf. They had been asked to interview Naufal who had been introduced in the email as the “country coordinator for the Al-Shabab mission in Uganda.”
The journalists came to meet with Naufal and gave him a copy of the email they had received from Yusuf. He immediately shared the incident with the company lawyer, forwarded him the email received by the journalists and requested him to notify the police department. On July 17 the

Ugandan police arrested Naufal, a Ugandan national and five other Pakistanis from the IT firm. After two weeks of detention, four Pakistanis were released on police bond with instructions not to leave Kampala. The fifth Pakistani has neither been charged nor released and remains in police custody in Kampala. And Naufal Sheikh and the Ugandan national have been charged with a whole range of offenses, including terrorism and murder, and have been shifted to prison pending trial.
What is the incriminating evidence against Naufal Sheikh and other Pakistanis arrested on the suspicion of being vile terrorists? One unsolicited email? The decks are stacked against these youths not because of damning evidence, but because they possess green passports. Since when have terror organisations set up sentiment-express services sending out congratulatory emails to their operatives, aiders and abettors to establish trails for the benefit of law-enforcement agencies? Imagine Al Qaeda or TTP sending out details of secret hideouts of their “country coordinators” to journalists for interviews and photo-ops! Can the basis for the charges of murder and terrorism get any more ludicrous?
Had Naufal Sheikh been involved in executing a terror attack in Kampala along with his Pakistani colleagues, why would he share with his company, his lawyer and the police the purported email from his patrons? In an investigation as serious as this, why has no one bothered to get access to information stored in Abdi Karim Abdullahi Yusuf’s email account through Gmail? And even after seven weeks since the arrests, why have the Ugandan police still not traced the IP address from which the fateful email was generated? Where are the damning telephone records and bank account details of these Pakistanis who were allegedly acting as Al-Shabab’s hitmen?
If the Kampala attacks were the handy work of an Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab ring involving Pakistanis, why has Pakistan and its law-enforcement agencies not been asked to assist with the investigation and carry out background checks on the accused? Naufal Sheikh’s father, Sheikh Zamir Hussain, is a senior advocate of the Supreme Court who is known for his integrity, professionalism and mild nature. After finishing high school at Beacon House, Naufal graduated as an electronics engineer from the GIK Institute. He got a master’s degree in IT Management from Syracuse University in 2007. He returned to Pakistan and got married in 2008, before moving to Kampala. The couple is presently expecting their first baby. Does this sound like the profile of a rabid terrorist?
Naufal Sheikh’s only sin is that he is Pakistani. In the post-9/11 world, profiling on the basis of race and national origin has taken an ugly form. Anyone traveling internationally would bear testament. The green passport automatically attracts sniffer-dog-style security checks. Muslims getting pulled out of flights because their attire or beards makes fellow travelers nervous is not uncommon, especially in the US. A team of Pakistani military officials heading for a meeting at US Centcom was recently forced to disembark at Dulles airport after one of the officers wondered whether it would be their last flight. Had it been nationals of a non-suspect country, the flight crew might have readily understood that after a long journey from Pakistan the officer was hoping it would be his last connecting flight to Tampa.
Unfortunately the green passport doesn’t just cause embarrassment, inconvenience or ego-bruises. If Naufal Sheikh’s situation or the pitiable story of Pakistani students arrested on charges of terrorism in UK last year have a common theme, it is that as a Pakistani you are in serious peril if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The logic of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ has simply been reversed when it involves green passport holders. The abridgment of fundamental rights of Pakistanis to liberty, dignity, freedom to travel and not to be discriminated against is abominable. But then profiling is also a reality of the world, especially within the domain of law enforcement. We practice it everyday at each checkpoint within Pakistan as well.
Thus, so long as most terror plots around the globe continue to find some kind of a linkage to Pakistan, each one of us will have to bear the liability that come along with the green passport. But while each Pakistani pays a disproportionate price for the past follies of the Pakistani state, can the government wash its hands of the responsibility to protect and defend the fundamental rights of its citizens held hostage in foreign lands? Why has public outrage become an imperative to prod the Pakistani government and state agencies into discharging their obligations? Why must Naufal Sheikh’s family run from pillar to post and beg for personal favors to rescue this young man being punished merely for an incidence-of-birth defect?
Why begrudge other states and their high-handed treatment of green passports when Pakistan and its agencies exhibit zero regard for the protection and welfare of its own citizens? Why has our foreign office and the high commission in Kenya not formally sought counselor access to Naufal Sheikh and other apprehended Pakistanis or made arrangements to provide them with independent legal help or offer support and information to their families? What will it take for the interior ministry and our intelligence agencies to coordinate with the Interpol, the FBI and the Ugandan Intelligence to investigate the role of the arrested Pakistanis and seek their release if they are innocent? Can anyone please help these wretched souls rotting in Kampala? Mr Prime Minister? Mr Foreign Minister? Mr Interior Minister? Anyone?
Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu