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Pakistani drone victims’ lawyer says U.S. blocked his visit to Congress
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/24/pakistani-drone-victims-lawyer-says-u-s-blocked-his-visit-to-congress/
Pakistani drone victims’ lawyer says U.S. blocked his visit to Congress
By Ryan Devereaux, The Guardian
Tuesday, September 24, 2013 14:05 EDT
The US government is being accused of derailing a congressional hearing that would be the first to hear testimony from survivors of an alleged CIA drone strike by failing to grant the family’s lawyer’s a visa.
Shahzad Akbar, a legal fellow with the British human rights group Reprieve and the director of the Pakistan-based Foundation for Fundamental Rights, says the State Department is preventing him for taking his clients to Capitol Hill next week. The hearing would mark the first time US lawmakers heard directly from drone strike survivors.
Akbar’s clients, Rafiq ur-Rehman, his 13-year-old son, Zubair, and his nine-year-old daughter, Nabila, are from the tribal regions of North Waziristan. The children were injured in the alleged US strike on the village of Tappi last year. Their grandmother – Rehman’s mother, Mamana – was killed.
Rehman and his children have spent months making preparations to visit Washington after being invited by US representatives to testify in the ad hoc hearing on drone strikes.