We are all imprisoned...

7:05, Düsseldorf, Germany

Something happened today. You know, dear readers, how I never miss an opportunity to pick up the daily Der Spiegel. I’m still not fluent in German and the newspaper is good for learning the nuances of the language. Yet, how I wish that I had decided to stay at work late today, when I was given an opportunity to do so. Then I may not have picked up today's damn issue. Or maybe not; if I hadn’t given in to my daily addictions then my family and I would still be left deceived by those prison guards.

No, my brother has not been released. The brother who has been there for me, who even sent me to Germany so I could actually do something with my life, is gone. He hasn’t died; perhaps that is the only gratification. My mother, sister, and eldest brother and I were worried that he was dead. Last September in Mauritania, before he drove himself—no, turned himself in to Nouakchott prison-- was the last time we spoke to him, let alone saw him. There was no news about him from the government. Even the press did not print anything! My brother is the pride of the family. He was known and looked up to by many. Why was there such silence? He even made friends with the guards at the prison! Although I wasn’t there to see it, he actually invited one of them to help set up his cable TV! His cable TV!!! Who would invite one of their detainees into their own home? Of course it was my brother, my gentle, loving brother, who can almost forgive anyone. My gentle, loving brother, who is now STUCK BEHIND ANOTHER WIRE FENCE! Not in Mauritania. He’s in Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp in Cuba!

The Mauritanian government’s words don’t hold any weight any more. They never told my family he had left the country. The guards at the visitor station even brazenly pocketed my brother’s meal money and the clothes that my eldest brother so painstakingly brought to the prison every week for the past year. Was one of the guards my brother’s friend? I hope not, he better not have been; if yes that is beyond disgusting… Still, my brother is only deemed innocent in our mother country, not in Cuba, where Guantánamo Bay is so ironically under U.S. jurisdiction. It is not a secret that there is great unrest and anti-Muslim invectives and action in the U.S. The only reason my brother was first arrested was because of Americans’ suspicions. Sure my brother was a poster child for Allah. He, unlike my eldest brother and I, would never miss a prayer to recite the Koran. Still, he was not a racialist and extremist, he did not wish terror on anyone, let alone the Americans!

Still how will I tell my family back at home? How will they react to this news? I don’t think my mother can handle the more stress this would bring. She was so against me going back to Germany after I came back because of my brother’s last detainment. She was afraid, and still is, that I will be taken away by foreign intelligence like I had been by Mauritania’s secret service, the second time my brother was forcefully arrested. She had begged me stay in Rosso, that money didn’t matter, and that I should accompany my eldest brother to try to meet my middle brother. I did accompany him once to Nouakchott, 200 km away. My mother was so sad as she ironed my brother’s clothes; she cried many tears and soiled one of his shirts. She laughed after, told us that it had stained and asked if we could wait a moment while she could pick out another shirt. It was heart breaking.

What could be more heartbreaking than learning that your son was imprisoned 200km away? Well, I think learning that your son was in an ambiguous judicial situation (?) grey spot a continent away would be even more so. All I know is that I want to punch those guards who think they are so smart as they embezzle from a small family from Rosso. But I won't because I will go to jail and who else will support the family. My sister is depressed, my eldest brother does works as a labourer and does not have the qualifications, nor do I have the means to send him to Europe. We are stuck. I will call them tonight. Tomorrow I’ll try to book a flight back home.

Dear readers, I believe you understand what I am saying. I will not be able to post in a while. Allah is with you as I pray he is with me.

--Yahdih