title: Open world

text: The Outerra Engine is a world rendering engine in development since 2008 that is capable of seamlessly rendering whole planets from space down to ground level. Anteworld is a world-building game and free tech-demo of the Outerra Engine that builds upon real-world data to render planet Earth realistically on a true-to-life scale.


title: Open world

text: "No Man's Sky", released in 2016, is an open-world game set in a virtually infinite universe. According to the developers, through procedural generation, the game is able to produce more than 18 quintillion ( or 18,000,000,000,000,000,000) planets to explore. Several critics found that the nature of the game can become repetitive and monotonous, with the survival gameplay elements being lackluster and tedious. Jake Swearingen in "New York" said, "You can procedurally generate 18.6 quintillion unique planets, but you can't procedurally generate 18.6 quintillion unique things to do." Updates have aimed to address these criticisms.


title: Open world

text: In 2017, the open-world design of "" was described by critics as being revolutionary and by developers as a paradigm shift for open-world design. In contrast to the more structured approach of most open-world games, "Breath of the Wild" features a large and fully interactive world that is generally unstructured and rewards the exploration and manipulation of its world. Inspired by the original 1986 "Legend of Zelda", the open world of "Breath of the Wild" integrates multiplicative gameplay, where "objects react to the player's actions and the objects themselves also influence each other." Along with a physics engine, the game's open-world also integrates a chemistry engine, "which governs the physical properties of certain objects and how they relate to each other," rewarding experimentation. Nintendo has described the game's approach to open-world design as "open-air".


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: Pinkerton is the second studio album by American rock band Weezer, released on September 24, 1996, by DGC Records. After abandoning plans for a rock opera entitled "Songs from the Black Hole", Weezer recorded the album between the songwriter Rivers Cuomo's terms at Harvard University, where he wrote most of the songs.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: To better capture their live sound, Weezer self-produced "Pinkerton", creating a darker, more abrasive album than their self-titled 1994 debut. Cuomo's lyrics express loneliness and disillusionment with the rock lifestyle; the album is named after the character BF Pinkerton from Giacomo Puccini's 1904 opera "Madama Butterfly", whom Cuomo described as an "asshole American sailor similar to a touring rock star". Like the opera, the album contains references to Japanese culture.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: "Pinkerton" produced the singles "El Scorcho", "The Good Life", and "Pink Triangle", and debuted at number nineteen on the US "Billboard" 200. It failed to meet sales expectations, and received mixed reviews; "Rolling Stone" readers voted it the third worst album of 1996. Embarrassed, Cuomo returned to more traditional pop songwriting and less personal lyrics for Weezer's subsequent albums. In the years following its release, "Pinkerton" was reassessed and achieved acclaim; several publications have named it one of the best albums of all time, and it was certified platinum in 2016. It was the last Weezer album to feature the bassist Matt Sharp.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: In 1994, after the multi-platinum success of Weezer's self-titled debut album, Weezer took a break from touring for Christmas. In his home state of Connecticut, songwriter Rivers Cuomo began preparing material for Weezer's next album using an 8-track recorder. His original concept was a science fiction rock opera, "Songs from the Black Hole, "that expressed his mixed feelings about success. Weezer developed "Songs from the Black Hole" through intermittent recording sessions throughout 1995.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: In April 14, 1995, Cuomo, who was born with one leg shorter than the other, had extensive leg surgery to lengthen his right leg, followed by eight and a half weeks of painful physiotherapy sessions. This affected his songwriting, as he would spend long periods hospitalized, unable to walk without the use of a cane, and under the influence of painkillers. In the same period, Cuomo applied to study classical composition at Harvard University with an application letter describing his disillusionment with the rock lifestyle: "You will meet two hundred people every night, but each conversation will generally last approximately thirty seconds ... Then you will be alone again, in your motel room. Or you will be on your bus, in your little space, trying to kill the nine hours it takes to get to the next city, whichever city it is."


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: Cuomo felt limited by rock music. Every night, after performing with Weezer, he listened to Giacomo Puccini's 1904 opera "Madama Butterfly; "the "depth of emotion and sadness and tragedy" inspired him to go further with his music. By May 1996, Cuomo's songwriting had become "darker, more visceral and exposed, less playful", and the "Songs from the Black Hole" concept was abandoned. Weezer's second album would instead feature songs written while Cuomo was at Harvard, chronicling his loneliness and frustration, or what Cuomo referred to as his "dark side".


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: In 1995, a few days before Cuomo left to study at Harvard, Weezer spent two weeks at New York City's Electric Lady Studios, where they had recorded their debut, and tracked the songs "Why Bother?", "Getchoo", "No Other One" and "Tired of Sex". Weezer hoped to explore "deeper, darker, more experimental stuff" and better capture their live sound. They decided against hiring a producer, feeling that "the best way for us to sound like ourselves is to record on our own". To give the album a live, "raw" feel, Cuomo, guitarist Brian Bell and bassist Matt Sharp recorded their vocals in tandem around three microphones rather than overdubbing them separately.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: While Cuomo was at Harvard, other Weezer members worked on side projects. Sharp promoted "Return of the Rentals", the debut album by his band the Rentals, and Bell and drummer Patrick Wilson worked on material for their bands the Space Twins and the Special Goodness. In January 1996, during Cuomo's winter break, Weezer regrouped for a two-week session at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California, to complete the songs they had worked on in August. After recording "El Scorcho" and "Pink Triangle", they separated again while Cuomo returned to Harvard.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: During Cuomo's 1996 spring break, Weezer regrouped at Sound City Studios and recorded "The Good Life", "Across the Sea" and "Falling for You" before Cuomo returned to Harvard for his finals. They completed "Pinkerton" in mid-1996 in Los Angeles. Two additional tracks, "I Swear It's True" and "Getting Up and Leaving", were abandoned prior to mixing.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: "Pinkerton" features a darker, more abrasive sound than Weezer's debut. Writing from a more direct and personal perspective, Cuomo wrote of his dysfunctional relationships, sexual frustration, and struggles with identity. The album charts his "cycle between 'lame-o and partier'". At just under thirty-five minutes, "Pinkerton" is, according to Cuomo, "short by design". Genre-wise, critics have described the album as alternative rock, emo, power pop, pop punk, and lo-fi.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: The first song, "Tired of Sex", written before the release of the "Blue Album", has Cuomo describing meaningless sex encounters with groupies, reciting his list of encounters and wondering why true love eludes him. "Across the Sea" was inspired by a letter Cuomo received from a Japanese fan: "When I got the letter, I fell in love with her. It was such a great letter. I was very lonely at the time, but at the same time I was very depressed that I would never meet her."


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: "The Good Life" chronicles the rebirth of Cuomo after an identity crisis as an Ivy League loner. Cuomo, who felt isolated at Harvard, wrote the song after "becoming frustrated with that hermit's life I was leading, the ascetic life. And I think I was starting to become frustrated with my whole dream about purifying myself and trying to live like a monk or an intellectual and going to school and holding out for this perfect, ideal woman. And so I wrote the song. And I started to turn around and come back the other way."


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: "El Scorcho" addresses Cuomo's shyness and inability to approach a girl while at Harvard; he explained that the song "is more about me, because at that point I hadn't even talked to the girl, I didn't really know much about her." "Pink Triangle" describes a man who falls in love, but discovers the object of his devotion is a lesbian.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: "Pinkerton" is named after the character BF Pinkerton from "Madama Butterfly", who marries and then abandons a Japanese woman named Butterfly. Calling him an "asshole American sailor similar to a touring rock star", Cuomo felt the character was "the perfect symbol for the part of myself that I am trying to come to terms with on this album". Other titles considered included "Playboy" and "Diving into the Wreck" (after a poem by Adrienne Rich).


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: Like "Madama Butterfly", "Pinkerton" views Japanese culture from the perspective of an outsider who considers Japan fragile and sensual; the Japanese allusions are infused with the narrator's romantic disappointments and sexual frustration. Cuomo wrote that "Pinkerton" "is really the clash of East vs West. My hindu, zen, kyokushin, self-denial, self-abnegation, no-emotion, cool-faced side versus my Italian-American heavy metal side". The songs are mostly sequenced in the order in which he wrote them, and so "the album kind of tells the story of my struggle with my inner Pinkerton".


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: The cover artwork is derived "Kambara yoru no yuki" ("Night snow at Kambara") from the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hiroshige's 1830s series "53 Stations of the Tōkaidō". Lyrics from "Madama Butterfly" are printed on the "Pinkerton" CD in their original Italian: "Everywhere in the world, the roving Yankee takes his pleasure and his profit, indifferent to all risks. He drops anchor at random..."


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: Behind the CD tray is a map with the title "Isola della farfalla e penisola di cane" (Italian for "Island of the Butterfly and Peninsula of Dog"). On the map are a ship named "USS Pinkerton" and "Mykel and Carli Island", alluding to Weezer's fan club founders, and the names of some of Cuomo's influences, including Howard Stern, Yngwie Malmsteen, Brian Wilson, Lou Barlow, Joe Matt, Camille Paglia and Ace Frehley.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: Geffen A&R rep Todd Sullivan described "Pinkerton" as a "very brave record", but worried: "What sort of light does this put the band in? It could have been interpreted as them being a disposable pop band." Geffen was pleased with the record and felt that fans would not be disappointed.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: Weezer turned down a video treatment for the lead single, "El Scorcho", proposed by Spike Jonze, who had helped raise Weezer's status with his videos for "Undone – The Sweater Song" and "Buddy Holly". Cuomo said: "I really want the songs to come across untainted this time around... I really want to communicate my feelings directly and because I was so careful in writing that way. I'd hate for the video to kinda misrepresent the song, or exaggerate certain aspects." The "El Scorcho" video featured the band playing in an assembly hall in Los Angeles, surrounded by light fixtures flashing in time to the music. The director, Mark Romanek, quit after arguments with Cuomo, leaving Cuomo to edit the video himself. The video debuted on MTV's 120 Minutes and received moderate airplay.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: "Pinkerton" debuted at number 19 on the US "Billboard" charts, its highest position. It sold 47,000 copies its first week, falling far short of Weezer's previous album sales. As "Pinkerton" was not meeting sales expectations, Weezer felt pressure to make another music video more to the liking of MTV. The music video for "The Good Life", directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, stars Mary Lynn Rajskub as a pizza delivery girl and uses simultaneous camera angles appearing on screen as a fractured full image. Geffen rush-released the video to try to save the album, but was not successful.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: In October 1996, Weezer toured the Far East, with concert appearances in Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Afterwards, they flew home to Los Angeles, where Wilson and Sharp made a promotional appearance on the nationally syndicated radio show "Modern Rock Live". On November 1, Weezer began a tour of North America at the Ventura Theatre in Ventura, California. On November 6, Weezer performed an acoustic set at Shorecrest High School in Seattle due to a contest won by a student. A few of the performances were released in 1997 on the "Good Life" EP.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: Weezer continued to tour until mid-1997. The tour was postponed when sisters Mykel, Carli and Trysta Allan died in a car accident while driving home from a Weezer show in Denver, Colorado. Mykel and Carli ran Weezer's fan club and helped manage publicity for several other Los Angeles bands, and had inspired the "Sweater Song" B-side "Mykel and Carli". Weezer canceled a show to attend their funeral. In August, Weezer and other bands held a benefit concert for their family in Los Angeles.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: A day before "Pinkerton" was to be released on September 24, 1996, a restraining order was obtained by Californian security firm Pinkerton's Inc. The company sued Weezer and Geffen for alleged federal trademark infringement, claiming they were trying to capitalize on the company's reputation. Under the terms of the restraining order, which had Pinkerton's Inc seeking two million dollars in damages, Weezer would be kept from "selling, distributing, or advertising" an album under the name "Pinkerton". Geffen spokesman Dennis Dennehy defended the title, arguing that it was a reference to "Madama Butterfly" and not aimed at "any sort of corporate entity". Cuomo wrote a six-page paper explaining why he chose the title and why he felt it was essential. The case was thrown out of court after the judge determined that "the hardship of not issuing the "Pinkerton" disc would be greater for Geffen than any hardship Pinkerton's Inc or its shareholders might incur from consumers who mistakenly presume the company has anything to do with the album".


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: Initial reviews were mixed. Jeff Gordinier of "Entertainment Weekly" deemed "Pinkerton" "a collection of get-down party anthems for agoraphobics" and criticized Weezer's choice to self-produce, which he felt resulted in a "sloppy and raw" aesthetic inferior to the pop sound of their debut. In "Rolling Stone", Rob O'Connor called Cuomo's songwriting "juvenile" and singled out "Tired of Sex" as "aimless". However, he praised "Butterfly" as "a real treat, a gentle acoustic number that recalls the vintage, heartbreaking beauty of Big Star ... suggesting that underneath the geeky teenager pose is an artist well on his way to maturity." "Rolling Stone" readers voted the album the third worst of 1996. Some listeners were perturbed by the sexual nature of the lyrics; "Melody Maker" praised "Pinkerton"s music, but advised listeners "to ignore the lyrics entirely".


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: Steve Appleford of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that "Pinkerton"s songs often "are sloppy and awkward, but express a seemingly genuine, desperate search for sex and love". Mark Beaumont of "NME" praised the album, writing that "by the time the affecting acoustic lament 'Butterfly' wafts in like Big Star at a wildlife protection meeting, "Pinkerton" starts feeling like a truly moving album". Ryan Schreiber of "Pitchfork" wrote that ""Pinkerton" might actually be a bit much for fans who were wooed with the clean production and immediately accessible sound of these guys' debut, but if given a chance, it might surprise even some anti-Weezer folk." "Guardian" critic Kathy Sweeney found "Pinkerton" "noisier and messier than their last album, and all the better for it". In a positive review, "Q" wrote: "On every tale of romance, delivered in perfect verse/chorus formula, you can see Jennifer Aniston giving it some attitude in the kitchen."


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: Cuomo was embarrassed by "Pinkerton's" reception and the personal nature of its songs. In August 1997, he wrote: "This has been a tough year. It's not just that the world has said "Pinkerton" isn't worth a shit, but that the "Blue" album wasn't either. It was a fluke. It was the ["Buddy Holly"] video. I'm a shitty songwriter."


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: After the "Pinkerton" tour, Sharp left the band and Weezer went on a hiatus. During this time, "Pinkerton" amassed a cult following through internet word of mouth, and a wave of mainstream emo bands including Jimmy Eat World, Saves the Day, Dashboard Confessional and Motion City Soundtrack were citing it as an influence. Cuomo told "Rolling Stone" in 2001: "The most painful thing in my life these days is the cult around "Pinkerton." It's just a sick album, sick in a diseased sort of way." In the same year, he told "Entertainment Weekly":


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: For Weezer's subsequent albums, Cuomo moved to simpler songwriting with less personal lyrics. "Rolling Stone" described Weezer's 2001 comeback album, the "Green Album," as the "anti-"Pinkerton"", with album art and "squeaky-clean" production that recalled Weezer's debut.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: "Pinkerton"s critical standing continued to rise; it came to be considered among Weezer's best work by fans and critics. In 2002, "Rolling Stone" readers voted it the 16th greatest album of all time; in 2003, "Pitchfork" gave "Pinkerton" a perfect score and named it the 53rd-greatest album of the 1990s; and in 2004, "Rolling Stone" gave the album a new review, awarding it five out of five and adding it to the ""Rolling Stone" Hall of Fame". Over the following years, it appeared in best-of lists by publications including "Spin" and "Drowned in Sound." By August 2009, it had sold 852,000 copies in the US and was certified gold. In 2016, almost 20 years after its release, it was certified platinum for sales of over one million copies in the US.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: By 2008, Cuomo had reconsidered the album, saying: ""Pinkerton"s great. It's super-deep, brave, and authentic. Listening to it, I can tell that I was really going for it when I wrote and recorded a lot of those songs." In 2010, Bell told "The Aquarian Weekly": ""Pinkerton" has definitely taken on a life of its own and became more successful and more accepted ... As an artist, you just have to do what you believe in at the time, whether it’s accepted or not. You just have to keep going with it." In 2010, Weezer embarked on the Memories Tour, playing "Blue" and "Pinkerton" in their entirety. Cuomo said of the tour: "The last time we played all of those ["Pinkerton"] songs, they went over like a lead balloon. And I just remember that feeling of just total rejection. And then to see 5,500 people singing along to every last word through every song on the album, even the really difficult ones, was incredibly validating for me."


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: On November 2, 2010, DGC released a "deluxe" "Pinkerton" reissue with an additional disc containing live performances, B-sides, and previously unreleased songs. The reissue debuted at number six on the "Billboard" Catalog Albums chart and achieved a perfect score on the aggregate review website Metacritic.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: Cuomo's 2011 compilation album comprises demos recorded between 1993 and 1996, when Cuomo was studying at Harvard and writing material for "Pinkerton" and the abandoned "Songs from the Black Hole" project. The album was included with a book, "The Pinkerton Diaries", which collects Cuomo's writings from the era.


title: Pinkerton (album)

text: In May 2016, "Pinkerton" was reissued on vinyl by the record subscription service Vinyl Me, Please. The album is pressed on "dark blue translucent vinyl with black marbling" and is packaged in a custom sleeve with pop-out art, a custom lyric sheet, artwork by Japanese painter Fuco Ueda, and a sake cocktail recipe.


title: Gogglebox

text: Gogglebox is a British reality television series created by Stephen Lambert, Tania Alexander and Tim Harcourt, and broadcast on Channel 4. The series documents families and groups of friends around the United Kingdom who are filmed for their observations and reactions to the previous week's television from their own homes. The first series launched on 7 March 2013, and the show began airing its nineteenth series on 18 February 2022. The show was narrated by Caroline Aherne from its launch until her death in July 2016, after which Craig Cash took over.


title: Gogglebox

text: The show has won numerous awards. In 2014 and 2022, it won a BAFTA in the Reality & Constructed Factual category. From 2015 to 2018, in 2021 and in 2022, it won a National Television Award. The success of "Gogglebox" spawned three spin-off series, including a version featuring children ("Gogglesprogs"), a version featuring 16 to 24-year-olds as they watch online content ("Vlogglebox"), and a version featuring celebrities ("Celebrity Gogglebox").


title: Gogglebox

text: The show was created by Stephen Lambert, Tania Alexander, and Tim Harcourt. Lambert is a media executive who is also responsible for the Channel 4 television shows "Wife Swap", "Faking It", "Undercover Boss", and "The Secret Millionaire". Alexander was Director of Factual Entertainment at Lambert's independent production company Studio Lambert, who said the idea was for "Gogglebox" to be a mix of the ITV comedy show "Harry Hill's TV Burp", which looked back at the previous week's television, and the BBC sitcom "The Royle Family", which centres around a television-fixated family, but with real, ordinary people. Harcourt, a Creative Director for Studio Lambert, had the original idea for "Gogglebox" while watching the 2011 London riots, and along with Alexander, devised the format for the show. They wondered what people talked about while watching the news, and came up with the idea of cutting between people watching the same TV shows. Farah Golant, the boss of All3Media, said: "But the show isn't really about TV. The show is about people's lives, their relationships, their living rooms and the way children and parents talk about TV [...] That's quite priceless. It captures a cultural response to something that's happening in the world.


title: Gogglebox

text: The concept of "Gogglebox" was criticised before the show aired; Alexander recalled people thinking Channel 4 had run out of ideas, but credited the network's head of factual David Glover as the one who recognised the show's potential and subsequently ordered Alexander to produce a proof of concept tape. The show's team set about casting, and it was during this period they signed on Leon and June Bernicoff. Alexander described the original reel as "a little rough around the edges, gosh it was actually really rough", and thought the script was "God awful" which was read by a narrator whose tone of voice was incompatible. Despite this, Glover felt strongly towards the concept and gave the green-light for a mini-series. The first series consisted of four episodes, the first of which aired on 7 March 2013. The show was a success, and a second series of 13 episodes began in September 2013.


title: Gogglebox

text: In November 2020, Alexander left "Gogglebox" after seven years to pursue a fresh challenge. She was replaced by Studio Lambert's deputy creative director, Mike Cotton, alongside "Gogglebox" executive producer Leon Campbell.


title: Gogglebox

text: The people cast on "Gogglebox" were found by the show, and the producers do not advertise for participants. Lambert said this approach is key to the show's success as it results in more likeable people and the audience can get to know the cast over time. From the beginning, Alexander did not want to feature people who wanted to be on television, and sought individuals "that had the ability to make us laugh very naturally and that's quite hard." One of the methods used to find participants is termed "street casting", whereby the show's team looked in everyday public places; Leon and June were found in a bridge club, and Stephen and Chris were found in a hair salon. In later series, members of the show's production team visited random houses and held up a card that contained something, such as a picture of the British Prime Minister or a "Daily Mail" headline, and noted how quick the person responded and any funny, interesting, or insightful comments they had. The show has also found participants through recommendations, which was how the Siddiqui family and couple Giles and Mary were found.


title: Gogglebox

text: The programme is filmed in the viewers' homes using two small remotely controlled cameras, known as "hot heads", operated by a small team elsewhere in the home that set up a temporary production control room. This team consists of a producer/director, gallery operator, assistant, audio engineer, researcher for live logging, and a runner. Each episode of "Gogglebox" is made in two days, and Alexander said that people who assumed the show is cheap or easy to make makes her "blood boil". Filming starts on Friday and continues through the week, but most of the first four days are spent assessing the filmed material. Four-person crews circulate between the households two or three evenings each week, and the cast watch the same programs as each other, which can amount to as much as six hours of television. Alexander said that the biggest problem encountered during the filming stage is the cast forgetting that they are meant to be commenting and have to be given "gentle prompts". She added that "the craft happens over the last couple of days before it goes out on the Friday", which usually begins on a Tuesday afternoon or the Wednesday, with the production team working through the night to produce an initial cut. Lambert said the skill involved is "throwing away 99.9% of what people say". The team reviews the first edit on a Thursday afternoon, after which further cuts or tweaks are made before the narration is recorded and the episode is delivered for broadcast.


title: Gogglebox

text: A version of the show featuring children, titled "Gogglesprogs", launched as a Christmas special on Christmas Day 2015, and was followed by a full-length series which began airing on 17 June 2016. In 2017, a spin-off show titled "Vlogglebox" aired on E4, which featured reactions from 16 to 24-year-olds as they watch online content on their smartphones, laptops or tablets. In 2019, it was announced that a celebrity version had been ordered; "Celebrity Gogglebox" began airing in 2019. It was later renewed for a second series, which aired in 2020, and a third series, which aired in 2021.


title: Gogglebox

text: In August 2022, it was announced that a Welsh-language version of Gogglebox, "Gogglebocs Cymru", would be produced for S4C, after Channel 4 had agreed to release exclusivity of its rights to the show in the UK. S4C issued a competitive tender for the production rights on the same day, with the show scheduled to debut in autumn 2022 as part of the channel’s 40th anniversary.


title: Gogglebox

text: An Australian edition of the programme debuted on 11 February 2015. It is a co-production between pay TV provider Foxtel and commercial Network Ten. It airs on Foxtel's Lifestyle Channel first and is repeated 24 hours later on Ten. The programme started its second season on 30 September 2015, and its third season in 2016. It is currently in its 15th season as of March 2022.


title: Gogglebox

text: Canadian (Bell Media), and American broadcasters. The American and Canadian versions, both called "The People's Couch", premiered on Bravo on March 10, 2014 (although a three-episode pilot run was aired in October 2013) and Bravo (Canada) in July 2014.


title: Gogglebox

text: An Irish edition of the programme debuted on 22 September 2016, a co-production between Kite Entertainment (Dublin) and Studio Lambert (London). By 2021, seven series had been broadcast.


title: Gogglebox

text: Polish version called "Gogglebox. Przed telewizorem" premiered on TTV on September 6, 2014. It is currently in its 17th season as of September 2022.


title: Gogglebox

text: Russian version called "Диван" (translated as "The Couch") premiered on STS on March 30, 2017. Only one season aired, consisting of 8 episodes.


title: Gogglebox

text: The Finnish version called "Sohvaperunat" (translated as "Couch potatoes") premiered in February 2015. The show started its 12th season in September 2021.


title: Gogglebox

text: S4C and Studio Lambert aired Gogglebocs Cymru on November 2nd as part of the channel's 40th anniversary celebrations. The show is narrated by Welsh comedian Tudur Owen.


title: Gogglebox

text: C4 and BBC Alba are planning to launch Gogglebox in September 2023 to mark BBC Alba's 15th anniversary.


title: Heimdall

text: In Norse mythology, Heimdall (from Old Norse Heimdallr) is a god who keeps watch for invaders and the onset of Ragnarök from his dwelling Himinbjörg, where the burning rainbow bridge Bifröst meets the sky. He is attested as possessing foreknowledge and keen senses, particularly eyesight and hearing. The god and his possessions are described in enigmatic manners. For example, Heimdall is gold-toothed, "the head is called his sword," and he is "the whitest of the gods."


title: Heimdall

text: Heimdall possesses the resounding horn Gjallarhorn and the golden-maned horse Gulltoppr, along with a store of mead at his dwelling. He is the son of Nine Mothers, and he is said to be the originator of social classes among humanity. Other notable stories include the recovery of Freyja's treasured possession Brísingamen while doing battle in the shape of a seal with Loki. The antagonistic relationship between Heimdall and Loki is notable, as they are foretold to kill one another during the events of Ragnarök. Heimdallr is also known as Rig, Hallinskiði, Gullintanni, and Vindlér or Vindhlér.


title: Heimdall

text: Heimdall is attested in the "Poetic Edda", compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional material; in the "Prose Edda" and "Heimskringla", both written in the 13th century; in the poetry of skalds; and on an Old Norse runic inscription found in England. Two lines of an otherwise lost poem about the god, "Heimdalargaldr", survive. Due to the enigmatic nature of these attestations, scholars have produced various theories about the nature of the god, including his relation to sheep, borders, and waves.


title: Heimdall

text: The etymology of the name is obscure, but 'the one who illuminates the world' has been proposed. "Heimdallr" may be connected to "Mardöll", one of Freyja's names. "Heimdallr" and its variants are usually anglicized as "Heimdall" (; with the nominative "-r" dropped).


title: Heimdall

text: Heimdall is attested as having three other names; "Hallinskiði", "Gullintanni", and "Vindlér" or "Vindhlér". The name "Hallinskiði" is obscure, but has resulted in a series of attempts at deciphering it. "Gullintanni" literally means 'the one with the golden teeth'. "Vindlér" (or "Vindhlér") translates as either 'the one protecting against the wind' or 'wind-sea'. All three have resulted in numerous theories about the god.


title: Heimdall

text: A lead spindle whorl bearing an Old Norse Younger Futhark inscription that mentions Heimdall was discovered in Saltfleetby, England on September 1, 2010. The spindle whorl itself is dated from the year 1000 to 1100 AD. On the inscription, the god Heimdallr is mentioned alongside the god Odin and Þjálfi, a name of one of the god Thor's servants. Regarding the inscription reading, John Hines of Cardiff University comments that there is "quite an essay to be written over the uncertainties of translation and identification here; what are clear, and very important, are the names of two of the Norse gods on the side, Odin and Heimdallr, while Þjalfi (masculine, not the feminine in -a) is the recorded name of a servant of the god Thor."


title: Heimdall

text: In the "Poetic Edda", Heimdall is attested in six poems; "Völuspá", "Grímnismál", "Lokasenna", "Þrymskviða", "Rígsþula", and "Hrafnagaldr Óðins".


title: Heimdall

text: Heimdall is mentioned three times in "Völuspá". In the first stanza of the poem, the undead völva reciting the poem calls out for listeners to be silent and refers to the Norse god:


title: Heimdall

text: This stanza has led to various scholarly interpretations. The "holy races" have been considered variously as either humanity or the gods. The notion of humanity as "Heimdall's sons" is otherwise unattested and has also resulted in various interpretations. Some scholars have pointed to the prose introduction to the poem "Rígsþula", where Heimdall is said to have once gone about people, slept between couples, and so doled out classes among them (see "Rígsthula" section below).


title: Heimdall

text: Later in "Völuspá", the völva foresees the events of Ragnarök and the role in which Heimdall and Gjallarhorn will play at its onset; Heimdall will raise his horn and blow loudly. Due to manuscript differences, translations of the stanza vary:


title: Heimdall

text: Regarding this stanza, scholar Andy Orchard comments that the name "Gjallarhorn" may here mean "horn of the river Gjöll" as "Gjöll is the name of one of the rivers of the Underworld, whence much wisdom is held to derive", but notes that in the poem "Grímnismál" Heimdall is said to drink fine mead in his heavenly home Himinbjörg.


title: Heimdall

text: Earlier in the same poem, the völva mentions a scenario involving the hearing or horn (depending on translation of the Old Norse noun "hljóð"—translations bolded below for the purpose of illustration) of the god Heimdall:


title: Heimdall

text: Scholar Paul Schach comments that the stanzas in this section of " Völuspá" are "all very mysterious and obscure, as it was perhaps meant to be". Schach details that ""Heimdallar hljóð" has aroused much speculation. Snorri [in the "Prose Edda"] seems to have confused this word with "gjallarhorn", but there is otherwise no attestation of the use of "hljóð" in the sense of 'horn' in Icelandic. Various scholars have read this as "hearing" rather than "horn".


title: Heimdall

text: Scholar Carolyne Larrington comments that if "hearing" rather than "horn" is understood to appear in this stanza, the stanza indicates that Heimdall, like Odin, has left a body part in the well; his ear. Larrington says that "Odin exchanged one of his eyes for wisdom from Mimir, guardian of the well, while Heimdall seems to have forfeited his ear."


title: Heimdall

text: In the poem "Grímnismál", Odin (disguised as "Grímnir"), tortured, starved and thirsty, tells the young Agnar of a number of mythological locations. The eighth location he mentions is Himinbjörg, where he says that Heimdall drinks fine mead:


title: Heimdall

text: Regarding the above stanza, Henry Adams Bellows comments that "in this stanza the two functions of Heimdall—as father of humanity [ . . . ] and as warder of the gods—seem both to be mentioned, but the second line in the manuscripts is apparently in bad shape, and in the editions it is more or less conjecture".


title: Heimdall

text: In the poem "Lokasenna", Loki flyts with various gods who have met together to feast. At one point during the exchanges, the god Heimdall says that Loki is drunk and witless, and asks Loki why he won't stop speaking. Loki tells Heimdall to be silent, that he was fated a "hateful life", that Heimdall must always have a muddy back, and that he must serve as watchman of the gods. The goddess Skaði interjects and the flyting continues in turn.


title: Heimdall

text: The poem "Þrymskviða" tells of Thor's loss of his hammer, Mjöllnir, to the jötnar and quest to get it back. At one point in the tale, the gods gather at the thing and debate how to get Thor's hammer back from the jötnar, who demand the beautiful goddess Freyja in return for it. Heimdall advises that they simply dress Thor up as Freyja, during which he is described as "hvítastr ása" (translations of the phrase vary below) and is said to have foresight like the Vanir, a group of gods:


title: Heimdall

text: Regarding Heimdall's status as "hvítastr ása" (variously translated above as "brightest" (Thorpe), "whitest" (Bellows), and "most glittering" (Dodds)) and the comparison to the Vanir, scholar John Lindow comments that there are no other indications of Heimdall being considered among the Vanir (on Heimdall's status as ""hvítastr ása "", see "scholarly reception" below).


title: Heimdall

text: The introductory prose to the poem "Rígsþula" says that "people say in the old stories" that Heimdall, described as a god among the Æsir, once fared on a journey. Heimdall wandered along a seashore, and referred to himself as "Rígr". In the poem, Rígr, who is described as a wise and powerful god, walks in the middle of roads on his way to steads, where he meets a variety of couples and dines with them, giving them advice and spending three nights at a time between them in their bed. The wives of the couples become pregnant, and from them come the various classes of humanity.


title: Heimdall

text: Eventually a warrior home produces a promising boy, and as the boy grows older, Rígr comes out of a thicket, teaches the boy runes, gives him a name, and proclaims him to be his son. Rígr tells him to strike out and get land for himself. The boy does so, and so becomes a great war leader with many estates. He marries a beautiful woman and the two have many children and are happy. One of the children eventually becomes so skilled that he is able to share in runic knowledge with Heimdall, and so earns the title of "Rígr" himself. The poem breaks off without further mention of the god.


title: Heimdall

text: In the "Prose Edda", Heimdall is mentioned in the books "Gylfaginning", "Skáldskaparmál", and "Háttatal". In "Gylfaginning", the enthroned figure of High tells the disguised mythical king Gangleri of various gods, and, in chapter 25, mentions Heimdall. High says that Heimdall is known as "the white As", is "great and holy", and that nine maidens, all sisters, gave birth to him. Heimdall is called "Hallinskiði" and "Gullintanni", and he has gold teeth. High continues that Heimdall lives in "a place" called Himinbjörg and that it is near Bifröst. Heimdall is the watchman of the gods, and he sits on the edge of heaven to guard the Bifröst bridge from the berg jötnar. Heimdall requires less sleep than a bird, can see at night just as well as if it were day, and for over a hundred leagues. Heimdall's hearing is also quite keen; he can hear grass as it grows on the earth, wool as it grows on sheep, and anything louder. Heimdall possesses a trumpet, Gjallarhorn, that, when blown, can be heard in all worlds, and "the head is referred to as Heimdall's sword". High then quotes the above-mentioned "Grímnismál" stanza about Himinbjörg and provides two lines from the otherwise lost poem about Heimdall, "Heimdalargaldr", in which he proclaims himself to be the son of Nine Mothers.


title: Heimdall

text: In chapter 49, High tells of the god Baldr's funeral procession. Various deities are mentioned as having attended, including Heimdall, who there rode his horse Gulltopr.


title: Heimdall

text: In chapter 51, High foretells the events of Ragnarök. After the enemies of the gods will gather at the plain Vígríðr, Heimdall will stand and mightily blow into Gjallarhorn. The gods will awake and assemble together at the thing. At the end of the battle between various gods and their enemies, Heimdall will face Loki and they will kill one another. After, the world will be engulfed in flames. High then quotes the above-mentioned stanza regarding Heimdall raising his horn in "Völuspá".


title: Heimdall

text: At the beginning of "Skáldskaparmál", Heimdall is mentioned as having attended a banquet in Asgard with various other deities. Later in the book, "Húsdrápa", a poem by 10th century skald Úlfr Uggason, is cited, during which Heimdall is described as having ridden to Baldr's funeral pyre.


title: Heimdall

text: In chapter 8, means of referring to Heimdall are provided; "son of nine mothers", "guardian of the gods", "the white As" (see "Poetic Edda" discussion regarding "hvítastr ása" above), "Loki's enemy", and "recoverer of Freyja's necklace". The section adds that the poem "Heimdalargaldr" is about him, and that, since the poem, "the head has been called Heimdall's doom: man's doom is an expression for sword". Hiemdallr is the owner of Gulltoppr, is also known as Vindhlér, and is a son of Odin. Heimdall visits Vágasker and Singasteinn and there vied with Loki for Brísingamen. According to the chapter, the skald Úlfr Uggason composed a large section of his "Húsdrápa" about these events and that "Húsdrápa" says that the two were in the shape of seals. A few chapters later, ways of referring to Loki are provided, including "wrangler with Heimdall and Skadi", and section of Úlfr Uggason's "Húsdrápa" is then provided in reference:


title: Heimdall

text: Renowned defender [Heimdall] of the powers' way [Bifrost], kind of counsel, competes with Farbauti's terribly sly son at Singastein. Son of eight mothers plus one, might of mood, is first to get hold of the beautiful sea-kidney [jewel, Brisingamen]. I announce it in strands of praise.


title: Heimdall

text: The chapter points out that in the above "Húsdrápa" section Heimdall is said to be the son of nine mothers.


title: Heimdall

text: Heimdall is mentioned once in "Háttatal". There, in a composition by Snorri Sturluson, a sword is referred to as "Vindhlér's helmet-filler", meaning "Heimdall's head".


title: Heimdall

text: In "Ynglinga saga" compiled in "Heimskringla", Snorri presents a euhemerized origin of the Norse gods and rulers descending from them. In chapter 5, Snorri asserts that the Æsir settled in what is now Sweden and built various temples. Snorri writes that Odin settled in Lake Logrin "at a place which formerly was called Sigtúnir. There he erected a large temple and made sacrifices according to the custom of the Æsir. He took possession of the land as far as he had called it Sigtúnir. He gave dwelling places to the temple priests." Snorri adds that, after this, Njörðr dwelt in Nóatún, Freyr dwelt in Uppsala, Heimdall at Himinbjörg, Thor at Þrúðvangr, Baldr at Breiðablik and that to everyone Odin gave fine estates.


title: Heimdall

text: A figure holding a large horn to his lips and clasping a sword on his hip appears on a stone cross from the Isle of Man. Some scholars have theorized that this figure is a depiction of Heimdall with Gjallarhorn.


title: Heimdall

text: A 9th or 10th century Gosforth Cross in Cumbria, England depicts a figure holding a horn and a sword standing defiantly before two open-mouthed beasts. This figure has been often theorized as depicting Heimdall with Gjallarhorn.


title: Heimdall

text: Heimdall's attestations have proven troublesome and enigmatic to interpret for scholars. A variety of sources describe the god as born from Nine Mothers, a puzzling description (for more in-depth discussion, see Nine Mothers of Heimdallr). Various scholars have interpreted this as a reference to the Nine Daughters of Ægir and Rán, personifications of waves. This would therefore mean Heimdall is born from the waves, an example of a deity born from the sea.


title: Heimdall

text: In the textual corpus, Heimdall is frequently described as maintaining a particular association with boundaries, borders, and liminal spaces, both spatial and temporal. For example, "Gylfaginning" describes the god as guarding the border of the land of the gods, Heimdall meets humankind at a coast, and, if accepted as describing Heimdall, "Völuspá hin skamma" describes him as born 'at the edge of the world' in 'days of yore' by the Nine Daughters of Ægir and Rán, and it is Heimdall's horn that signals the transition to the events of Ragnarök.


title: Heimdall

text: Additionally, Heimdall has a particular association with male sheep, rams. A form of the deity's name, "Heimdali", occurs twice as a name for 'ram' in "Skáldskaparmál", as does Heimdall's name "Hallinskíði". Heimdall's unusual physical description has also been seen by various scholars as fitting this association: As mentioned above, Heimdall is described as gold-toothed (by way of his name "Gullintanni"), as having the ability to hear grass grow and the growth of wool on sheep, and as owning a sword called 'head' (rams have horns on their heads). This may mean that Heimdall was associated with the ram perhaps as a sacred and/or sacrificial animal or that the ancient Scandinavians may have conceived of him as having been a ram in appearance.


title: Heimdall

text: All of these topics—Heimdall's birth, his association with borders and boundaries, and his connection to sheep—have led to significant discussion among scholars. For example, influential philologist and folklorist Georges Dumézil, comparing motifs and clusters of motifs in western Europe, proposes the following explanation for Heimdall's birth and association with rams (italics are Dumézil's own):


title: Heimdall

text: As with many aspects of Norse mythology, Heimdall has appeared in many modern works. Heimdall appears as a character in Marvel Comics and is portrayed in the film versions by English actor Idris Elba.


title: Heimdall

text: Heimdall is the protagonist of an eponymous video game released in 1991 and its 1994 sequel, "Heimdall 2". In the 2002 Ensemble Studios game "Age of Mythology", Heimdall is one of 12 gods the Norse can choose to worship. Heimdallr is one of the playable gods in the multiplayer online battle arena game "Smite". Heimdall also appears in the 2022 action-adventure video game "God of War Ragnarök" and is played by the American actor Scott Porter.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Aafia Siddiqui (; born 2 March 1972) is a Pakistani national who is serving an 86-year sentence at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, United States for attempted murder and other felonies.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Siddiqui was born in Pakistan to a Sunni Muslim family. For a period from 1990, she studied in the United States and obtained a PhD in neuroscience from Brandeis University in 2001. She returned to Pakistan for a time following the 9/11 attacks and again in 2003 during the war in Afghanistan. Khalid Sheikh Muhammad named her a courier and financier for al-Qaeda, and she was placed on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations's Seeking Information – Terrorism list; she remains the only woman to have been featured on the list. Around this time, she and her three children were allegedly kidnapped in Pakistan.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Five years later, she reappeared in Ghazni, Afghanistan, and was arrested by Afghan police and held for questioning by the FBI. While in custody, Siddiqui allegedly told the FBI she had gone into hiding but later disavowed her testimony and stated she had been abducted and imprisoned. Supporters believe she was held captive at Bagram Air Force Base as a ghost prisoner, an allegation the U.S. government denies. During the second day in custody, she allegedly shot at visiting U.S. FBI and Army personnel with an M4 carbine one of the interrogators had placed on the floor by his feet. She was shot in the torso when a warrant officer returned fire. She was hospitalized, treated and then extradited to the US, where in September 2008 she was indicted on charges of assault and attempted murder of a US soldier in the police station in Ghazni, charges she denied. She was convicted on 3 February 2010 and later sentenced to 86 years in prison.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Her case has been called a "flashpoint of Pakistani-American tensions", and "one of the most mysterious in a secret war dense with mysteries". In Pakistan, her arrest and conviction was seen by the public as an "attack on Islam and Muslims", and occasioned large protests throughout the country; while in the US, she was considered by some to be especially dangerous as "one of the few alleged Al Qaeda associates with the ability to move about the United States undetected, and the scientific expertise to carry out a sophisticated attack". She has been termed "Lady al-Qaeda" by a number of media organizations due to her alleged affiliation with Islamists. Islamic State have offered to trade her for prisoners on two occasions: once for James Foley and once for Kayla Mueller. Pakistani news media called the trial a "farce", while other Pakistanis labeled this reaction "knee-jerk Pakistani nationalism". The Pakistani Prime Minister at that time, Yousaf Raza Gillani, and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, promised to push for her release.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Aafia Siddiqui was born in Karachi, Pakistan, to Muhammad Salay Siddiqui, a British-trained neurosurgeon, and Ismet ("née" Faroochi), an Islamic teacher, social worker and charity volunteer. She belongs to the Urdu-speaking Muhajir, Deobandi community of Karachi. She was raised in an observant Muslim household, although her parents combined devotional Islam with their resolve to understand and use technological advances in science.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Ismet Siddiqui was prominent in political and religious circles, teaching classes on Islam wherever she lived, founding a United Islamic Organization, and serving as a member of Pakistan's parliament. Her support for strict Islam in the face of feminist opposition to his Hudood Ordinances drew the attention of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq who appointed her to a Zakat Council. Siddiqui is the youngest of three siblings. Her brother, Muhammad, studied to become an architect in Houston, Texas, while her sister, Fowzia, is a Harvard-trained neurologist who worked at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore and taught at Johns Hopkins University before she returned to Pakistan.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Aafia attended school in Zambia until the age of eight and finished her primary and secondary schooling in Karachi.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Siddiqui moved to Houston, Texas, US on a student visa in 1990, joining her brother who was studying architecture. She attended the University of Houston where friends and family described her interests as limited to religion and schoolwork. She avoided movies, novels and television, except for the news. After three semesters, she transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: In 1992, as a sophomore, Siddiqui won a $5,000 Carroll L. Wilson Award for her research proposal "Islamization in Pakistan and its Effects on Women". She returned to Pakistan to interview architects of the Islamization and the Hudood Laws, including Taqi Usmani, the spiritual adviser to her family. As a junior, she received a $1,200 City Days fellowship through MIT's program to help clean up Cambridge elementary school playgrounds. While she initially had a triple major in biology, anthropology, and archaeology at MIT, she graduated in 1995 with a BS in biology.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: At MIT, Siddiqui lived in the all-female McCormick Hall. She remained active in charity work and proselytising. Her fellow MIT students described her as being religious, which was not unusual at the time, but not a fundamentalist, one of them saying that she was "just nice and soft-spoken." She joined the Muslim Students' Association, and a fellow Pakistani recalls her recruiting for association meetings and distributing pamphlets. Siddiqui began doing volunteer work for the Al Kifah Refugee Center after returning from Pakistan. Al Kifah included members who assassinated Jewish ultranationalist Meir Kahane and helped Ramzi Yousef with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. She was known for her effectiveness in shaming audiences into contributing to jihad and the only woman known to have regularly raised money for Al-Kifah. Through the student association she met several committed Islamists, including Suheil Laher, its imam, who had publicly advocated Islamization and jihad before 9/11. Journalist Deborah Scroggins suggested that through the association's contacts Siddiqui may have been drawn into the world of terrorism:


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Aafia's commitment to al-Kifah showed no sign of dimming when the connection between its Jersey City branch and the World Trade Center bombing became apparent. When the Pakistani government helped the US arrest and extradite Ramzi Yousef for his role in the bombing (where Yousef hoped to kill 250,000 Americans by knocking one WTC tower over into the other) an outraged Siddiqui circulated the announcement with a scornful note deriding Pakistan for "officially" joining "the typical gang of our contemporary Muslim governments", closing her email with a quote from the Quran warning Muslims not to take Jews and Christians as friends. She wrote three guides for teaching Islam, expressing the hope in one: "that our humble effort continues... and more and more people come to the [religion] of Allah until America becomes a Muslim land." She also took a 12-hour pistol training course at the Braintree Rifle and Pistol Club, mailed US military manuals to Pakistan and moved from her apartment after the FBI agents visited the university looking for her.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: In 1995, she agreed to a marriage arranged by her mother to Karachi-born anesthesiologist Amjad Mohammed Khan just out of medical school and whom she had never seen. The marriage ceremony was conducted over the telephone. Khan then came to the US, and the couple lived first in Lexington, Massachusetts, and then in the Mission Hill neighbourhood of Roxbury, Boston, where he worked as an anesthesiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital. She gave birth to a son, Muhammad Ahmed, in 1996, and to a daughter, Mariam Bint-e Muhammad, in 1998.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Siddiqui studied cognitive neuroscience at Brandeis University. In early 1999, while she was a graduate student, she taught the General Biology Laboratory course. She received her PhD in 2001 after completing her dissertation on learning through imitation; "Separating the Components of Imitation". She co-authored a journal article on selective learning that was published in 2003. One incident that caused controversy was her presentation of a paper on fetal alcohol syndrome where she concluded that science showed why God had forbidden alcohol in the Quran. When told by some teachers this was inappropriate, she complained bitterly of discrimination to the associate dean of graduate studies, threatening to "open a can of worms".


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: After receiving her PhD, she told one of her advisers she planned to devote herself to her family rather than a career. She began translating biographies of Arab Afghan "shahid" (jihad fighters who had been killed) written by Abdullah Yusuf Azzam ("the Godfather of Jihad"). and became more strict in her religion, wearing a "niqāb"—a black veil that covered everything but her eyes—and avoiding any music—even background music at science exhibits.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: In 1999, while living in Boston, Siddiqui founded the Institute of Islamic Research and Teaching as a nonprofit organisation. She was the organisation's president, her husband's treasurer, and her sister's resident agent. She attended a mosque outside the city where she stored copies of the Quran and other Islamic literature for distribution. She also co-founded the Dawa Resource Center, which offered faith-based services to prison inmates.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Tensions began to arise in her marriage, which, according to Siddiqui's husband Khan, was caused by her overwhelming devotion to activism and jihad. Siddiqui temporarily moved away from her husband after he threw a baby bottle at her that required a visit to the emergency room to stitch up her lip. In the summer of 2001, the couple moved to Malden, Massachusetts.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: According to Khan, after the 9/11 attacks, Siddiqui was adamant that the family leave the US, saying that their lives were in danger if they remained. Once back in Pakistan, Siddiqui demanded that the family move to the border with Afghanistan and Khan work as a medic to help the Taliban "mujahideen" in their fight against America. Khan was reluctant to disobey his parents who opposed this move, and uncertain if he had reached the stature traditionally thought necessary to wage jihad. Siddiqui agreed to return to him in the US in January 2002 after he agreed to her conditions including that he join her in Islamic activities. She began home schooling her children.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: By this point, the FBI was questioning Siddiqui's former professors and other associates. In May 2002, the FBI began questioning Siddiqui and her husband regarding their purchase over the internet of $10,000 worth of night vision equipment, body armour, and military manuals including "The Anarchist's Arsenal", "Fugitive", "Advanced Fugitive", and "How to Make C-4". Khan claimed that these were for hunting and camping expeditions. He later told authorities he purchased them to please Siddiqui. The couple made an appointment to talk to the FBI again in a few weeks, but, according to Khan, Siddiqui insisted the family leave for Pakistan, and on 26 June 2002, the couple and their children returned to Karachi.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: In August 2002, Khan alleged that Siddiqui was abusive and manipulative throughout their seven years of marriage; he suspected she was involved in extremist activities. Khan went to Siddiqui's parents' home, announced his intention to divorce her, and argued with her father. Shortly after, Siddiqui's father died of a heart attack, an event blamed on Khan and the marriage difficulties by his ex-in-laws, further poisoning his relations with them.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: In September 2002, Siddiqui gave birth to Suleman, the last of their three children. Following an attempted and failed reconciliation and signing of a divorce document shortly after, the couple never met each other again.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: The couple's divorce was finalised on 21 October 2002. According to her statements to the FBI, it was at this point that her connections with Al-Qaeda began in earnest.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: In February 2003, Siddiqui married Ammar al-Baluchi, an accused al-Qaeda member and a nephew of al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), in Karachi. While her family denies she married al-Baluchi, Pakistani and US intelligence sources, a psychologist for the defense during her 2009 trial, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's family all confirm that the marriage took place. The marriage lasted only a couple of months. According to one of KSM's uncles, Mohammed Hussein, al-Baluchi became alienated with Siddiqui's "liberal way of life". Siddiqui told the FBI that al-Baluchi divorced her after he was arrested.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Siddiqui left for the US on 25 December 2002, informing her ex-husband Amjad Mohammed Khan that she was looking for a job; she returned on 2 January 2003. He later stated he was suspicious of her explanation as universities were on winter break. The purpose of the trip was to assist Majid Khan in opening a post office box so that it could appear he was living in the US when he mailed his application for an INS travel document. Majid Khan was listed as a co-owner of the box. The FBI alleged that Majid Khan was an al-Qaeda operative. Siddiqui told the FBI that she agreed to open the post box and mail the application because he was a family friend. The P.O. box key was later found in the possession of Uzair Paracha, who was convicted of providing material support to al-Qaeda.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: According to the US government, Majid Khan was an operative for an Al-Qaeda cell led by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad which planned to attack targets in the US, in the UK (at Heathrow Airport) and inside Pakistan. In the US, C-4 plastic explosives and other chemicals would be smuggled in under the cover of textile exports – 20 and 40 ft foot containers filled with women's and children's clothes. The explosives would be used to bomb petrol stations, underground fuel storage tanks in Baltimore and chemicals to poison or destroy pumps to water treatment facilities. A dummy import-export business run by Saifullah Paracha (who is now interned at Guantánamo Bay), would import the explosives.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: According to the US government, Siddiqui's role was to "rent houses and provide administrative support for the operation". When she returned from Pakistan to the US in January 2003, it was, according to the charge, to help renew the American travel papers of Majid Khan, who would execute the bombing. In his testimony, Majid Khan stated that he provided Siddiqui with money, photos and a completed application for an "asylum travel form" that "looked and functioned like a passport", and back in the US Siddiqui "opened a post office box in detainee's name, using her driver's licence information".


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: The plot unraveled after Majid Khan was arrested in Pakistan on 1 March 2003 and sent to Guantánamo. In America, another operative, Uzair Paracha, was arrested in possession of the post box key. Defense attorneys note that testimony gathered by investigators "were likely to have been extracted under conditions of torture." Her lawyer suggested she had been the victim of identity theft, while her sister Fowzia has maintained the post office box was intended for use in applying for jobs at American universities. Charges were not brought against Siddiqui for the opening of the post box or for mailing the application in her trial.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: According to a dossier prepared by UN investigators for the 9/11 Commission in 2004, Siddiqui, using the alias Fahrem or Feriel Shahin, was one of six alleged al-Qaeda members who bought $19 million worth of blood diamonds in Monrovia, Liberia, immediately prior to the 11 September 2001 attacks. The diamonds were purchased because they were untraceable assets to be used for funding al-Qaeda operations. The identification of Siddiqui was made three years after the incident by one of the go-betweens in the Liberian deal. Alan White, former chief investigator of the UN-backed war crimes tribunal in Liberia, said she was the woman. Siddiqui's lawyer maintained credit card receipts and other records showed that she was in Boston at the time.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: In early 2003, while Siddiqui was working at Aga Khan University in Karachi, she emailed a former professor at Brandeis and expressed interest in working in the US, citing lack of options in Karachi for women of her academic background.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: According to "a combination of US intelligence analysis and direct testimony by at least three senior al-Qaida figures", known as Guantánamo files, Siddiqui was an al-Qaeda operative. The file included evidence from Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, (KSM) the al-Qaeda chief planner of the 11 September 2001 attacks, who was interrogated and tortured (waterboarded 183 times) after his arrest on 1 March 2003. His "confessions" – obtained while being tortured – triggered a series of related arrests shortly thereafter, and included naming Siddiqui. On 25 March 2003, the FBI issued a global "wanted for questioning" alert for Siddiqui and her ex-husband, Khan. Siddiqui was accused of being a "courier of blood diamonds and a financial fixer for al-Qaida".


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: FBI agent Dennis Lormel, who investigated terrorism financing, said the agency ruled out a specific claim that she had evaluated diamond operations in Liberia, though she remained suspected of money laundering.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Aware that the FBI wanted her for questioning, she left her parents' house 30 March 2003 with her three children. According to her parents, she was going to go to Islamabad to visit her uncle but never arrived. Around 25 March, the FBI put out a "worldwide alert" for Aafia and her ex-husband.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Siddiqui's and her children's whereabouts and activities from March 2003 to July 2008 are a matter of dispute. Her supporters and the Pakistani government claim she was held as a prisoner by the US; the US government and others (including Siddiqui in her statements to the FBI immediately after her arrest) suggest she went into hiding with KSM's al-Baluchi family.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Starting 29 March, a "confusing series" of reports and denials of her arrest and detention appeared in Pakistan and the US. On 1 April 2003, local newspapers reported and Pakistan interior ministry confirmed that a woman had been taken into custody on terrorism charges. "The Boston Globe" described "sketchy" Pakistani news reports saying she had been detained for questioning by Pakistani authorities and the FBI. However, a couple of days later, both the Pakistan government and the FBI publicly stated they were uninvolved in her disappearance. Her sister Fauzia claimed Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said that her sister had been released and would be returning home "shortly".


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: In 2003–04, the FBI and the Pakistani government said Siddiqui was still at large. On 26 May 2004, US Attorney General John Ashcroft held a press conference described her as among the seven "most wanted" al-Qaeda fugitives and a "clear and present danger to the US". "Newsweek" reported that she might be "the most immediately threatening suspect in the group".


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: One day before the announcement, however, "The New York Times" cited the US Department of Homeland Security saying there were no current risks; American Democrats accused the Bush administration of attempting to divert attention from plummeting poll numbers and to push the failings of the Invasion of Iraq off the front pages.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: After her 2008 reappearance and arrest, Siddiqui told the FBI that she had at first gone into hiding with KSM's al-Baluchi clan (her lawyer later repudiated that statement) and worked at the Karachi Institute of Technology in 2005, was in Afghanistan in 2007, and also spent time in Quetta, Pakistan, sheltered by various people. She told the FBI she met with Mufti Abu Lubaba Shah Mansoor, and according to the FBI had begun collecting materials on viruses for biological warfare. According to an intelligence official in the Afghan Ministry of the Interior, her son, Ahmed, who was with her when she was arrested, said he and Siddiqui had worked in an office in Pakistan collecting money for poor people. He told Afghan investigators that on 14 August 2008 they had traveled by road from Quetta to Afghanistan. An Afghan intelligence official said he believes that Siddiqui was working with Jaish-e-Mohammed (the "Army of Muhammad"), a Pakistani Islamic "mujahideen" military group that fights in Kashmir and Afghanistan.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: According to her ex-husband Khan, after the global alert for her was issued, Siddiqui went into hiding and worked for al-Qaeda. During her disappearance, Khan said he saw her at Islamabad airport in April 2003 as she disembarked from a flight with their son; he said he helped Inter-Services Intelligence identify her. He said he again saw her two years later, in a Karachi traffic jam. Khan unsuccessfully sought custody of his son Ahmed and said most of the claims of Siddiqui's family in the Pakistani media relating to her and their children were one-sided and largely false.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: In a signed affidavit, Siddiqui's maternal uncle, Shams ul-Hassan Faruqi, stated that on 22 January 2008 she visited him in Islamabad and told him she had been held by Pakistani agencies. Knowing he had worked in Afghanistan and made contact with the Taliban in 1999, she asked for his help to cross into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan where she thought she would be safe. He told her he was no longer in touch with them. He notified his sister, Siddiqui's mother, who came the next day to see her daughter. He said that Siddiqui stayed with them for two days. Investigating the disappearance, US journalist Deborah Scroggins reported that Geo TV presenter Hamid Mir informed her that friends of Siddiqui believed she had gone underground avoiding the FBI. Scroggins was also warned by Pakistanis with jihadist connections, including Khalid Khawaja, that she might end up like Daniel Pearl (who was beheaded) if she attempted to find Siddiqui.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Ahmed and Siddiqui reappeared in 2008. Afghan authorities handed the boy over to his aunt in Pakistan in September 2008, who has prohibited the press from talking to him. In April 2010, DNA identified a girl as Siddiqui's daughter, Mariyam.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: When Siddiqui's ex-mother and father-in-law filed a custody suit against the Siddiqui family in an attempt to see their grandchildren (the Siddiqui family refused to talk to them), Siddiqui's mother claimed under oath the FBI and US Justice Department officials had informed her that "the minors are with the mother and are in safe condition," the opposite of what such officials had told her American lawyer in May of that year. Siddiqui's sister and mother denied that she had any connections to al-Qaeda and claimed that the US held her secretly in Afghanistan. They pointed to comments by former Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, detainees who say Siddiqui had been at the prison while they were there. Her sister said that Siddiqui had been raped, and tortured for five years. According to journalist, Muslim convert, and former Taliban captive Yvonne Ridley, Siddiqui spent those years in solitary confinement at Bagram as "Prisoner 650". Six human rights groups, including Amnesty International, listed her as a possible ghost prisoner held by the US. In early 2007, the Pakistan government started releasing more than a hundred people who had been listed as "missing". At the time, the CIA reportedly detained up to 100 people at secret facilities. S.H. Faruqi, Siddiqui's uncle, reported that Siddiqui visited him in January 2008 telling him she had been imprisoned and tortured at Bagram Airfield for several years and released to serve as a double agent infiltrating extremist groups. Siddiqui herself later claimed that she had been kidnapped by US intelligence and Pakistani intelligence.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: According to one Pakistani report, her mother claimed to have been warned by an unidentified man "not to make a fuss about her daughter's disappearance, if she wants safe recovery of her daughter," suggesting that either government intelligence services or the "nexus of Pakistani and Arab jihadis" had hidden Siddiqui.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Siddiqui has not explained clearly what happened to her other two children. According to a psychiatric exam given while she was in custody, her story has alternated between claiming that the two youngest children were dead and that they were with her sister Fowzia. She told one FBI agent that pursuing the cause of jihad had to take priority. Khan said he believed that the missing children were in Karachi, either with or in contact with Siddiqui's family, and not in US detention. He said that they were seen in her sister's house in Karachi and in Islamabad since 2003.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: In April 2010, Mariam was found outside the family house wearing a collar with the address of the family home. She was said to be speaking English. A Pakistani ministry official said the girl was believed to have been held captive in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2010.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: The US government said it had not held Siddiqui during that time frame and was unaware of her location from March 2003 until July 2008. The mass of secret U.S. cables released in 2010 by Wikileaks included memos by the US Embassy in Islamabad Pakistan asking other US government departments whether Asfia had been in secret custody. One stated: "Bagram officials have assured us that they have not been holding Siddiqui for the last four years, as has been alleged."


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: The US ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson, stated that Siddiqui had not been in US custody "at any time" prior to July 2008. The US Justice Department and the CIA denied the allegations, and Gregory Sullivan, a State Department spokesman, said: "For several years, we have had no information regarding her whereabouts whatsoever. It is our belief that she... has all this time been concealed from the public view by her own choosing." Assistant US Attorney David Raskin said in 2008 that US agencies found "zero evidence" that she was abducted, kidnapped or tortured in 2003. He added: "A more plausible inference is that she went into hiding because people around her started to get arrested, and at least two of those people ended up at Guantanamo Bay." According to some U.S. officials, she went underground after the FBI alert for her was issued, and was at large working on behalf of al-Qaeda. "The Guardian" cited an anonymous senior Pakistani official suggesting Siddiqui may have abandoned the militant cause.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Another theory was that the CIA and FBI did not have the ability to capture suspects in Pakistan, where many people were anti-American, and only the ISI had the ability to capture Siddiqui. While the ISI may have known how to get her or even have her in custody, they were not "ready to hand her over", whatever reward the Americans offered.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Siddiqui was on the CIA's list of suspected al-Qaeda terrorists it was authorized to "kill or capture". According to Rolf Mowatt-Larssen of the Counterterrorism Center at the CIA, what set Siddiqui apart from other terrorism suspects was "her combination of high intelligence (including general scientific know-how), religious zeal, and years of experience in the United States... So far they have had very few people who have been able to come to the U.S. and thrive. Aafia is different. She knows about U.S. immigration procedures and visas. She knows how to enroll in American educational institutions. She can open bank accounts and transfer money. She knows how things work here. She could have been very useful to them simply for her understanding of the U.S."


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: While the CIA's sources of information could not determine her exact role in al-Qaeda, "[s]he was always in the picture. Connections between her and other people in FBI was looking at surfaced in just about every al-Qaeda investigation with a U.S. angle. She was always on our radar."


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: According to the FBI, in her testimony to them she had collected materials on viruses for biological warfare and one of her projects was finding a way to infect America's poultry supplies with an antibody that would allow chickens to pass salmonella on to humans more easily. She later destroyed her work after suspecting Abu Lubab was hoping to double cross her and turn her into the United States authorities.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: On the evening of 17 July 2008, a woman was approached by Ghazni Province police officers in the city of Ghazni outside the Ghazni governor's compound. She was holding two small bags at her side while crouching on the ground. This aroused the officer's suspicion, raising concerns that she might be concealing a bomb under her burqa. Previously, a shopkeeper had noticed a woman in a burqa drawing a map, which is suspicious in Afghanistan where women are generally illiterate. There had also been a report that a Pakistani woman in a burqa with a boy were traveling in Afghanistan urging women to volunteer for suicide bombing. She was accompanied by a young boy that she said was her adopted son. She said her name was Saliha, that she was from Multan in Pakistan, and that the boy's name was Ali Hassan. Discovering that she did not speak either of Afghanistan's main languages, Pashtu or Dari, the officers regarded her as suspicious. She told the police she was looking for her husband, needed no help, and started to walk away. She was arrested and taken to the police station for questioning. She initially claimed the boy was her stepson, Ali Hassan. The woman was not identified as Siddiqui until after she was hospitalized and fingerprinted. She subsequently admitted he was her biological son when DNA testing proved the boy to be Ahmed.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: In a bag she was carrying, the police found a number of documents in English and Urdu describing how to make explosives, chemical weapons, Ebola, dirty bombs, and radiological agents, as well as the mortality rates of certain weapons and handwritten notes referring to a "mass casualty attack" that listed various US locations and landmarks (including the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the New York City subway system), according to her indictment. "The Boston Globe" also mentioned one document about a "theoretical" biological weapon that did not harm children. She also reportedly had documents about American military bases, excerpts from a bombmaking manual, a one-gigabyte digital media storage device that contained over 500 electronic documents (including correspondence referring to attacks by "cells", describing the US as an enemy, and discussing recruitment of "jihadists" and training), maps of Ghazni and the provincial governor's compounds and nearby mosques, and photos of members of the Pakistani military. Other notes described various ways to attack enemies, including by destroying reconnaissance drones, using underwater bombs, and using gliders.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: She also had "numerous chemical substances in gel and liquid form that were sealed in bottles and glass jars", according to the later complaint against her, and about two pounds of sodium cyanide, a highly toxic poison. US prosecutors later said that sodium cyanide is lethal even when ingested in small doses, and various of the other chemicals she had could be used in explosives. Abdul Ghani, Ghazni's deputy police chief, said she later confessed she had planned a suicide attack against the governor of Ghazni Province.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Attempting to explain the timing of her January 2008 visit to her uncle and asking for help in contacting the Taliban in Afghanistan, and her reappearance in Ghazni in July later that year, journalist Deborah Scroggins noted that a breakdown in the "long-standing alliance between the Deobandi jihadis and the military" occurred in preceding months, which—if Siddiqui was in hiding rather than imprisoned—could have led to Siddiqui's "falling out with her secret government protectors". In 2007, a roving "burka brigade" of women based at Lal Mosque attempted to enforce sharia law in Islamabad. Attempts to stop them climaxed in July when at least 100 militants were killed by the military in the storming of the Lal Mosque. In the next five months, dozens of suicide attacks killing almost 2,000 people (including many soldiers) were executed in retaliation. Scroggins believed this bloodshed may have alienated any military protection Siddiqui had, and the role played by women of the "burka brigade" could have been seen by conservative Islamists as evidence of women causing "fitna" (strife).


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: On the other hand, supporters noted that Siddiqui's reappearance "loitering in Ghazni... less than two weeks" after a press conference by Yvonne Ridley where Ridley alleged Siddiqui had been "held in isolation by the Americans for more than four years", and which "attracted enormous coverage" especially in the Muslim world, seemed highly suspicious.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: There are conflicting accounts of the events following her arrest in Ghazni. American authorities said that two FBI agents, a US Army warrant officer, a US Army captain, and their US military interpreters arrived in Ghazni the following day on 18 July to interview Siddiqui at the Afghan National Police facility where she was being held. They reported they congregated in a meeting room that was partitioned by a curtain, but did not realise that Siddiqui was standing unsecured behind the curtain. The warrant officer sat down and put his loaded M4 carbine on the floor by his feet near the curtain. Siddiqui drew back the curtain, picked up the rifle, and pointed it at the captain. "I could see the barrel of the rifle, the inner portion of the barrel of the weapon; that indicated to me that it was pointed straight at my head," he said. Then, she was said to have threatened them loudly in English, and yelled "Get the fuck out of here" and "May the blood of [unintelligible] be on your [head or hands]". The captain dived for cover to his left as she yelled ""Allah Akbar"" and fired at least two shots at them, missing them. An Afghan interpreter who was seated closest to her tried to disarm her. At that point, the warrant officer returned fire with a 9-millimeter pistol, hitting her in the torso, and one of the interpreters disarmed her. A Justice Department statement said that Siddiqui struck and kicked the officers during the ensuing struggle; "she shout[ed] in English that she wanted to kill Americans" and then lost consciousness.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Siddiqui related a different version of events, according to Pakistani senators who later visited her in jail. She denied touching a gun, shouting, or threatening anyone. She said she stood up to see who was on the other side of the curtain, and that after one of the startled soldiers shouted "She is loose", she was shot. On regaining consciousness, she said someone said "We could lose our jobs."


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Some of the Afghan police offered a third version of the events, telling Reuters that US troops had demanded that she be handed over, disarmed the Afghans when they refused, and then shot Siddiqui mistakenly thinking she was a suicide bomber.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Siddiqui was taken to U.S. military base Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan by helicopter in critical condition. When she arrived at the hospital, she was rated at 3 on the Glasgow Coma Scale, but she underwent surgery without complication. She was hospitalised at the Craig Theater Joint Hospital, and recovered over the next two weeks. According to FBI reports prepared after the operation, Siddiqui repeatedly denied shooting anyone. FBI reports maintained that Siddiqui told a US special agent at the Craig Hospital on or about 1 August that "spewing bullets at soldiers is bad," and expressed surprise that she was being treated well.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: While at the hospital, she was interrogated by an FBI agent every day for ten days for an "average of eight hours" a day. Her testimony was at odds with what Siddiqui later told lawyers and the court about what happened during her disappearance. Supporters complained that she was not Mirandized, nor did she have access to a Pakistani consular official, and that she was in a "narcotic state" at the time. She later told visiting Pakistani her statements might not look good to the Pakistani public but she had made them because her children had been threatened.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: In pretrial activity, defense attorney Elaine Sharp said that the documents and item found on Siddiqui were planted. A government terrorism expert disagreed, stating there were "hundred of pages in her own handwriting". In Pakistan, Siddiqui's sister Fowzia accused the US of raping and torturing her sister and denying her medical treatment. The Pakistan National Assembly passed a unanimous resolution calling for Siddiqui's repatriation.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Prior to her trial, Siddiqui said she was innocent of all charges. She maintained she could prove she was innocent but refused to do so in court. On 11 January 2010, Siddiqui told the judge that she would not co-operate with her attorneys and wanted to fire them. She said she did not trust the judge and added, "I'm boycotting the trial, just to let all of you know. There's too many injustices." She then put her head down on the defence table as the prosecution proceeded.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: On 31 July 2008, while Siddiqui was still being treated in Afghanistan, she was charged in a sealed criminal complaint in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York with assault with a deadly weapon and with attempting to kill a United States Army Captain "while engaged in... official duties." In total, she was charged on two counts of attempted murder of US nationals, officers, and employees, assault with a deadly weapon, carrying and using a firearm, and three counts of assault on US officers and employees.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Explaining why the US may have chosen to charge her as they did rather than for her alleged terrorism, Bruce Hoffman, professor of security studies at Georgetown University, said: "There's no intelligence data that needs to be introduced, no sources and methods that need to be risked. It's a good old-fashioned crime; it's the equivalent of a 1920s gangster with a tommy gun."


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Defense lawyer Sharp expressed skepticism regarding both the terrorism and assault charges: "I think it's interesting that they make all these allegations about the dirty bombs and other items she supposedly had, but they haven't charged her with anything relating to terrorism... I would urge people to consider her as innocent unless the government proves otherwise."


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: On 4 August 2008, Siddiqui was placed on an FBI jet and flown to New York City after the Afghan government granted extradition to the United States for trial. She refused to appear for her arraignment or attend a hearing in September or meet with visitors. Siddiqui made her first appearance before a judge in a Manhattan courtroom on 6 August 2008 following which she was remanded into custody.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: On 11 August, after her counsel maintained that Siddiqui had not seen a doctor since arriving in the US the previous week, US Magistrate Judge Henry B. Pitman ordered that she be examined by a medical doctor within 24 hours. Prosecutors maintained that Siddiqui had received adequate medical care for her gunshot wound but could not confirm whether she had been seen by a doctor or paramedic. The judge postponed her bail hearing until 3 September. An examination by a doctor the following day found no visible signs of infection; she also received a CAT scan.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Siddiqui was provided care for her wound while incarcerated in the US. In September 2008, a prosecutor reported to the court that Siddiqui had refused to be examined by a female doctor, despite the doctor's extensive efforts. On 9 September 2008, she underwent a forced medical exam. In November 2008, forensic psychologist Leslie Powers reported that Siddiqui had been "reluctant to allow medical staff to treat her". Her last medical exam had indicated her external wounds no longer required medical dressing and were healing well. A psychiatrist employed by the prosecutor to examine Siddiqui's competence to stand trial, Gregory B. Saathoff, observed in a March 2009 report that Siddiqui frequently verbally and physically refused to allow the medical staff to check her vital signs and weight, attempted to refuse medical care once it was apparent that her wound had largely healed, and refused to take antibiotics. At the same time, Siddiqui claimed to her brother that when she needed medical treatment she did not get it, which Saathoff said he found no support for in his review of documents and interviews with medical and security personnel, nor in his interviews with Siddiqui.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Siddiqui's trial was subject to delays, the longest being six months to perform psychiatric evaluations. She had been given routine mental health check-ups ten times in August and six times in September. She underwent three sets of psychological assessments before trial. Her first psychiatric evaluation diagnosed her with depressive psychosis, and her second evaluation, ordered by the court, revealed chronic depression. Leslie Powers initially determined Siddiqui mentally unfit to stand trial. After reviewing portions of FBI reports, however, she told the pre-trial judge she believed Siddiqui was faking mental illness.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: In a third set of psychological assessments, more detailed than the previous two, three of four psychiatrists concluded that she was "malingering" (faking her symptoms of mental illness) and that she behaved normally when she thought the assessors were not looking. One suggested that this was to prevent criminal prosecution and to improve her chances of being returned to Pakistan. In April 2009, Manhattan federal judge Richard Berman held that she "may have some mental health issues" but was competent to stand trial.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: While Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and other ghost prisoners had given the Red Cross "elaborate descriptions of waterboardings and other tortures" they had suffered, government psychiatrist Sally Johnson testified in a pre-trial hearing that Siddiqui had never given anyone, whether her brother, her lawyers, Pakistani senators or embassy personnel, other visitors, prison staff or psychiatrists, "a clear account of any torture or imprisonment".


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: A three-person defence team was hired by the Pakistani embassy to supplement her two existing public defenders, but Siddiqui refused to co-operate with them. She tried to dismiss her lawyers on the grounds that they were Jewish. She said the case against her was a Jewish conspiracy, demanded that no Jews be allowed on the jury, and that all prospective jurors be DNA-tested and excluded from the jury at her trial "if they have a Zionist or Israeli background." She stated: "they are all mad at me... I have a feeling everyone here is them—subject to genetic testing. They should be excluded, if you want to be fair." In regard to her comments, Siddiqui's legal team stated that her incarceration had damaged her mind.She later claimed she was not against all "Israeli Americans".


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: After 18 months of detention, Siddiqui's trial began in New York City on 19 January 2010. Prior to the jury entering the courtroom, Siddiqui told onlookers that she would not work with her lawyers because the trial was a sham. She also said: "I have information about attacks, more than 9/11!... I want to help the President to end this group, to finish them... They are a domestic, U.S. group; they are not Muslim."


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Nine government witnesses were called by the prosecution. Army Captain Robert Snyder, John Threadcraft, a former army officer, and FBI agent John Jefferson testified first. As Snyder testified that Siddiqui had been arrested with a handwritten note outlining plans to attack various US sites, she interjected: "Since I'll never get a chance to speak... If you were in a secret prison... or your children were tortured... Give me a little credit, this is not a list of targets against New York. I was never planning to bomb it. You're lying." The court also heard from FBI agent John Jefferson and Ahmed Gul, an army interpreter, who recounted their struggle with her. The judge disallowed as evidence her possession of chemicals and terror manuals and her alleged ties to al-Qaeda because they could have created an inappropriate bias.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Her defence argued that there was no forensic evidence that the rifle was fired in the interrogation room. They noted the nine government witnesses offered conflicting accounts of how many people were in the room, where they were positioned and how many shots were fired. It said that her handbag contents were not credible as evidence because they were sloppily handled. The prosecution argued that it was not unusual to fail to get fingerprints off a gun. "This is a crime that was committed in a war zone, a chaotic and uncontrolled environment 6,000 miles away from here." Gul's testimony appeared, according to the defence, to differ from that given by Snyder with regard to whether Siddiqui was standing or on her knees as she fired the rifle. When Siddiqui testified, she admitted trying to escape, but said she had not taken the rifle or fired any shots. She said she had been "tortured in secret prisons" before her arrest by a "group of people pretending to be Americans, doing bad things in America's name."


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Siddiqui insisted on testifying at the trial against the advice of her lawyers. According to at least one source (Deborah Scroggins), Siddiqui "avoided the question of where she had been for the last five years" and her replies under cross examination may have damaged her credibility in jurists' eyes. In answer to prosecutor's questions, she stated that the documents in her bag on terror plans and weapons had been given to her, and that she did not know that the boy who was with her in Ghazni was her son. When it was pointed out that the documents in her bag were in her own handwriting, she stated "in a vague and halting manner" that she had been forced to copy them out of a magazine so that her children would not be tortured. When questioned about taking a firearms course, she stated that "everyone used to take it". The pistol safety instructor then testified that he remembered teaching her how to fire "hundreds of rounds." In his closing arguments, the prosecutor told the jury that Siddiqui had "raised her right hand" and "lied to your face".


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: During the trial, Siddiqui was removed from the court several times for repeatedly interrupting the proceedings with shouting; on being ejected, she was told by the judge that she could watch the proceedings on closed-circuit television in an adjacent holding cell. A request by the defence lawyers to declare a mistrial was turned down by the judge. Amnesty International monitored the trial for fairness.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: The trial lasted 14 days with the jury deliberating for three days before reaching a verdict. On 3 February 2010, Siddiqui was found guilty of two counts of attempted murder, armed assault, using and carrying a firearm, and three counts of assault on US officers and employees. After jurors found Siddiqui guilty, she exclaimed: "This is a verdict coming from Israel, not America. That's where the anger belongs."


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: She faced a minimum sentence of 30 years and a maximum of life in prison on the firearm charge, and could also have received a sentence of up to 20 years for each attempted murder and armed assault charge, and up to 8 years on each of the remaining assault counts. Her lawyers requested a 12-year sentence, instead of the life sentence recommended by the probation office. They argued that mental illness drove her actions when she attempted to escape from the Afghan National Police station "by any means available... what she viewed as a horrific fate". Her lawyers also claimed her mental illness was on display during her trial outbursts and boycotts, and that she was "first and foremost" the victim of her own irrational behaviour. The sentencing hearing set to take place on 6 May 2010 was rescheduled for mid-August 2010 and then September 2010.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years in prison by Judge Berman on 23 September 2010. During the sentencing hearing, which lasted one hour, Siddiqui spoke on her own behalf. Upon hearing the verdict, she turned to trial spectators and told them that "this verdict coming from Israel and not from America".


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: A "New York Times" reporter wrote that at times during the hearing Judge Berman seemed to be speaking to an audience beyond the courtroom in an apparent attempt to address widespread speculation about Siddiqui and her case. He gave as an example a reference to the five-year period before her 2008 arrest of Siddiqui's disappearance and claims of torture, where the judge said: "I am aware of no evidence in the record to substantiate these allegations or to establish them as fact. There is no credible evidence in the record that the United States officials and/or agencies detained Dr. Siddiqui".


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: At the time of sentencing, Siddiqui did not show any interest in filing an appeal, instead saying "I appeal to God and he hears me." After she was sentenced, she urged forgiveness and asked the public not to take any action in retaliation. She stated, "forgive everybody in my case, please... Don't get angry. If I'm not angry, why should anyone else be?" In a notably gracious exchange between the bestower and recipient of an 80+ year sentence of incarceration, the judge wished her "the very best going forward", and both Siddiqui and the judge thanked each other.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: Siddiqui (Federal Bureau of Prisons #90279-054) was originally held at Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn. She is now being held in Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, a federal prison for female inmates with special mental health needs, and also relatively close to the home of her brother Ali Siddiqui. Her release date is 7 May 2082.


title: Aafia Siddiqui

text: In July 2019, while visiting Washington, D.C., Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan suggested Siddiqui should be exchanged for Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani doctor accused of helping the Americans confirm the identity of Osama bin Laden, in advance of the raid where he was killed.