Esta entrada también está disponible en: Español (Spanish) Português (Portuguese (Portugal))
PUSL.- In these days we hear many people saying that they are “as in prison” or “in isolation as in prison” these statements are very far from reality, however the fact that we are in partial social isolation may raise some awareness of the ordeal that is the isolation or forced confinement of millions of prisoners worldwide.
Some for years and decades, many of them political prisoners whose only crime was to speak up, express their opinion and speak out against the powers of occupation and repression.
Even when it comes to prisoners of common crime, prolonged confinement is torture and worse is daily torture that leaves deep psychological and physical marks and whose sole purpose is punishment in its most cruel and Machiavellian form.
Many of the Saharawi political prisoners are in prolonged confinement in Moroccan prisons. Most prisoners in the Gdeim Izik group for years now.
Last week Abdallah Abbahah, one of the members of this group, sentenced to life imprisonment, confirmed to the family by phone that he remains more than 23 hours alone in the cell and when he leaves he goes to a kind of small a patio where he remains alone and where the sun doesn’t shine. In a prison more than 1300km away from Western Sahara and his family.
I am not going to list here the countless violations surrounding the illegal detentions of these prisoners, but rather explain a little of what they feel.
“I was in isolation and also in a group cell. In isolation we hear voices, we speak alone, we have visions, the body hurts, the lack of light, movement weakens us. Madness is our cellmate.” testimony of former Saharawi political prisoner Brahim Sabbar.
“I saw huge spiders eating my foot, shadows that swallowed me, it was a nightmare from which I could not wake up, a constant terror. One survives, but one does not live, and it never leaves us, this experience never leaves us , this torture . It’s terrible.” Mrs. Degja Lashgar, former Saharawi political prisoner.
“For years I didn’t hear the sound of a woman’s or child’s voice. Every day (for 14 years) I thought they were coming to execute me. The sound of the guards’ boots was terrifying. I didn’t know if anyone knew if I was alive. There is no air, how do we survive? In fact, I cannot explain. It is very difficult, very difficult. It is endless torture. ” Mohamed Dadach, former Saharawi political prisoner.
“I couldn’t breathe, it was like being in a coffin, the dirt, the nauseating smells, the voices … so many voices in my head. We don’t know how much time passes, nothing ends.” Houcein Zawi, inmate of the Gdeim Izik Group.
“I get up and sit down, take three, four steps and repeat it again. There is no air, the chest hurts, the head, our memory gets worse and worse, you cannot imagine what this is. Nobody imagines what this is … The sounds of the prison, the screams of other prisoners, the screams of those who are being tortured … it’s hell. ” Abdallah Abbahah, political prisoner of the Gdeim Izik Group.
Saadoni Mutaguil Sabeg, former Saharawi political prisoner, tells his most recent experience in 2019:
“The psychological impact is enormous, but also the physical. There are no human contacts whatsoever, except with the guards or during short family visits when they are authorized.
I had nothing, no newspapers, no books, not even a radio, nothing. Only my thoughts, my voice. It was fatal, terrible.
I went on a hunger strike for 16 days to get them to let me have a radio, just to hear something.
It is a terrible experience, it is necessary that the prisoner has a great resistance to not go crazy. It is our conviction and our principles from which we have to suck up the courage and strength to resist. “
These testimonies from Saharawi political prisoners are echoed by Palestinian political prisoners, and from prisoners and ex-prisoners of fascist and oppressive regimes around the world.
“El Cura Paco” Paco Muñoz, a priest who has worked in prisons in southern Spain for decades, tells us about the confinement:
“For me, the word confinement is a very refined word to express what is confinement within a prison,
When someone is punished inside the prison, that prisoner’s life is tremendous, no one can imagine how much.
22 hours completely alone in a small space, there may be no more than three or four steps he can take and two hours to the patio where you are usually alone, a patio also small and with bars over it.
I heard a lot of very harsh testimonies from young people who spent years in this prison system and everyone was scared because it drives them crazy.
I myself thought that if I were ever there, it wouldn’t last six days without going crazy.
It surprises me when people say they know what a prison is, they know nothing! Prison is the denial of life, prison is the annulment of the person, prison is sadness walking, prison as one of them said is a cemetery of living men, it is the factory of tears, as Machado said. “