Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Karachi in support of Afia Siddiqui, the Pakistani scientist serving an 86-year jail term in the US, Press TV reports.
Answering a call from the country's biggest religious party, Jamaat-e-Islami, protesters gathered in the southern port city of Karachi on Friday saying Siddiqui has been tried based on prejudice of the US judicial system against Muslims.
Protesters chanted anti-US slogans and strongly criticized the US justice system for its handling of the case.
Relatives of Siddiqui have slammed the US justice system for its ruling against the female Pakistani scientist. Her parents say US judicial officials have frequently rejected their request for a new lawyer to represent their daughter.
There have been numerous rallies in the country over Siddiqui's case and her release has become a major national issue in Pakistan with protesters saying that the scientist's trial in the US was a complete mockery of the legal process.
A US court found Aafia guilty of attempting to murder American citizens while she was detained for questioning in Afghanistan. She was convicted in a New York court on February 3, 2010.
She has been accused of opening fire on FBI agents and US military personnel in a police station in Ghazni, Afghanistan, where she was being interrogated in 2008.
The 38-year-old Siddiqui vanished in Karachi, Pakistan with her three children on March 30, 2003. The following day, local newspapers reported that she had been abducted by US forces and charged with terrorism and having links to al-Qaeda.
Human rights organizations have also expressed doubts about the accuracy of the US account of the event. Human rights groups say Siddiqui had secretly been transferred to the US base in Bagram, north of Kabul, and tortured for five years prior to the alleged incident in 2008.
The harsh treatment of the US-educated scientist and her five-year secret detention and shooting has provoked an outrage in the Muslim world, especially her native country of Pakistan.
