Interrogation

“You are suspected of belonging to an illegal organization. Do you confess?”

    I shook my head vigorously in confusion. The officer then took a sack and shoved it over my head and tied my hands behind me with a thin plastic bind, making it so tight the corner bit into the skin like claw pincers. The sack had a dirty smell, stale urine. I was forced to sit in a small chair. My left to arm to an iron bar, my right to the back of the chair. After an hour, the pain burns between your shoulder blades.

After the seventh hour a policeman came.

“You are suspected of being member of an illegal organization. What do you have to say?”

I begged of them to believe I was innocent and tried to tell them of my wife and children, but they cut across my speech faster than I could talk with dehydration.

“Well then, if you won’t confess, we’ll have to step it up a little.”

First they fed me; unexpected with circumstance. An egg, Half of a tomato. 2 pieces of bread. Strange coloured water.

The bag went over my head again. I tried to move to get more comfortable and fell taking the chair with me. They punched me in the face for this mistake. 

The room was so cold.  I imagined a roof made from corrugated zinc. After a while I realised I could hear other people in rooms next to me. I tried to shout to them.

Then the tapes began playing loudly from speakers above my head. Ear-splitting amplified noise  They played 4 cassettes, with the same songs, 24 hours a day. Over and over. The chosen songs specifically tailored to make your skull bang every time the same word was heard, the same word was heard, the same word was heard. Mercilessly endless, insanity inducing.

“Ready to talk?”

That day I was taken to the police station, I waited 5 hours to go to court. In court they told the judge that they needed more time to gather evidence against me. I wasn’t allowed to talk to my lawyer. He tried to argue that lack of evidence meant false claims.

The judge extended my custody. 8 days.

The plastic bind around my wrists was now even tighter.  Different chair, new kind of pain. Shoulders, back, knees, wrists.

“Stand like this, do not move.”

The chair was gone, and  I was now free-standing. My hands attached to a pole, no leaning allowed. The sack was smelling more putrid with every hour. If I leant my head back, the bag suffocated me and I‘d begin to heave. I stood for days.

If my jailors believed me to be asleep, they gave me harsh prods to the base of my spine.  I was allowed to eat twice a day. If I was lucky. Egg, tomato, bread and strange coloured water.

After 4 exhausting days, I began to have visitors in my room; I kept seeing as though there was no bag to cover my vision. A family body lying spread-eagled on the floor.

 My brother is dead.

 My father is dead.

 My uncle is dead.

 My mother is sick, she needs the hospital, she won’t stop crying.

 I tell them not to arrest my wife but they take her anyway.

My children are dead.

After the 6th day, they let me sleep for three hours.

Suddenly the pain, which was all over my body, began to sear to the point of

Agony through my chest. I screamed for help.

“Ready to confess?”

I told them of my pain. Outside the room I heard them murmuring of my high blood pressure causing problems; so they tightened the plastic cords to cut into my wrists further.

My stomach a constant groan; I still wasn’t getting enough to eat. The pain was beginning to fade from certain parts of my body, beginning with my hands.

Interrogation ranged. A minute. 30 minutes, two hours, four hours. Every 24 to 30 hours.

“Are you ready to confess? We have all our information, you just need to sign.”

My daughter is dead.

My wife is dead.

“If you want to sleep, then all you have to do is talk?”

I had nothing new to say. He punched me in the left shoulder suddenly, then shook me violently throwing me back into the chair. I knew he had intended to give me a heart attack.

The cell walls begin to pound with music again. I pull painfully hard against my wrists in an instant reflex to cover my ears in torment.

I was back in court for the same fiasco of haggling over days they could hold me. The judge agreed to another 7 days, despite my lawyers protests.

On my way back to the building through the blindfold my captor whispered in my ear that I was moving to a new room, and apologised, telling me to co-operate.

A box, 1.2 metres square, filled with human excrement and urine. After a day I began to hallucinate that my cell was big, and consistently walked into the wall unable to pace.

My brother is dead.

My daughters are dead…

After a week I was beginning to pass out. They let me sleep for 5 hours in a small room with a stained mattress on the floor. They took me to court again. They argued that they were looking for one final piece of information on me, and needed another 5 days. My lawyer adamant that there was no information. The judge agreed on my release.

They had held me for 28 days, without cause. Now I had reason to talk.