"The silence has a weight to it, something that presses in on you the longer you sit with it. Isolation leaves me cut off and suspended in time."
"My 20-sq-metre cell is bare, with only a small cot and a corner commode designed to make solitary confinement as harsh as possible for prisoners."
"Even as I endure this, the greater pain is knowing my family is being relentlessly targeted for my political activism."
"After a weeklong hunger strike in June 2025, we were allowed a few newspapers and books, though no television."
A political prisoner reflects on a year of solitary confinement in Central Jail Huda, Quetta. The oppressive silence and isolation weigh heavily, exacerbated by the targeting of family members for activism. The cell is bare, with limited resources, and physical ailments have worsened due to lack of exercise. Despite these challenges, a routine of studying politics and reading provides a semblance of normalcy. The pain of isolation is intensified by the knowledge of family members being forcibly disappeared or targeted due to political beliefs.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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