The Verdict

The following article appeared in The Nation newspaper on February 12, 2010 in the Opinions section and was written by M. A. Niazi.

The Dreyfus case ended up defining the 20th century, as well as Europe. The root was probably in the fact that Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a brilliant army officer, was a Jew, and thus an outsider. However, he was selected for the French general staff, but then he was accused of spying for Germany. He was court-martialled and found guilty. He was sentenced to imprisonment, which he served on Devil's Island, the French penal colony in French Guiana, as insalubrious a spot as was ever invented. Apart from the Dreyfus case, the inhuman conditions on Devil's Island were also highlighted. Dreyfus also underwent 11 years before being exonerated, because the spy had been another officer, and not just trials of himself, but of two others, the guilty officer and Zola, the writer who had adopted his cause.
Dr Afia's case has similarities, though she has not found a Zola yet to defend her. Dr Afia too is an outsider, and nothing more than this case brings home how much

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