Our father has been incarcerated for almost 12 years in HMP Long Lartin without charge pending extradition to the USA. To date the neither the government of the USA or UK have not shown any evidence to say what he has done wrong, it is all based on baseless “allegations’’ which my Father is not allowed to challenge in Court.

I was only 13 years old when my Father was arrested, my younger brothers were 11-9 and 5 years old, my younger sister was only 1 years old and my youngest sister was not even born. In fact my Mother was pregnant with my youngest sister and both my youngest sisters do not have any memories of my father outside of prison. They have grown up only seeing him in prison.

 

When we are asked “How was your Eid’’ or sent “Eid Mubarak’’ text messages, I feel this does not apply to my family. We cant have a “happy Eid’’ as much as we try as NOTHING can fill that emptiness of the Rock, the centre of our family, our Father who is not here to celebrate this day with us and it has been like this in our house for the last 12 years.

 

In fact Eid day is harder than any other day and as much as it should be a day of celebration for Muslims it is a day we as a family unfortunately, I hate to say it, we do not look forward to at all as it makes the pain and suffering of having lost our father more intense. As our father faces another year of uncertainty languishing in the prison without charge or even evidence, we cannot say that insha’allah we will see our father in two years or 20 years. That is the hardest part of having someone incarcerated without charge, you have nothing to live for or hope for, you cannot plan your life, your life is in limbo.

You do not know if that Eid day you will receive a phone call telling you your father has been extradited to USA to face the rest of his life in prison. Every day is like living on knife’s edge. Even though we accept as Muslims that no-one ever knows when they will die, at least those reminders means you go out of your way to spend more time with your family or do good deeds, but when you cannot reach your Father, because he is 200 miles away in prison and you cannot at that moment hold him and tell him how you feel because of the barriers that separate you in prison, that is harder, because you feel more helpless and the pain becomes more intense.

Eid has always been hard because our father was the rock in our family, our Mother and siblings depended on him, but since his incarceration we have had to grown up so fast and it is sad to say that my brothers and I did not have a proper childhood as that was snatched away from us the day our father was taken. Even now my youngest two sisters have had to become independent despite their tender years, they have had to grow up and not have a proper childhood as we children try to keep our family together as our Mother on many occasions finds it very difficult to cope and has suffered breakdowns.

I just want to say that people must realise that forgotten prisoners of faith like my father have another life beyond just being a prisoner-they have a family life which is destroyed when they are imprisoned.

The way a body cannot function without all vital organs, a family, a Muslim family, just cannot function without the Amir and head of the family, the husband and father.

Yes, people may see the family of someone incarcerated and think “they are getting by’’ but no-one knows what that family is truly going through behind closed doors and the truth is, that family is falling apart. The children grow up without guidance and a father figure amongst the fitna and pressures of teenage life; they grow up not having what their friends have, not being able to ask their parents for Eid gifts, feeling they have to provide for their family a lot sooner as the breadwinner is no longer there. They feel deprived and inadequate compared to their friends; they feel they do not have the ability or chance to fulfil their potential in life.

My younger brother was A* student and maths genius who was set to take his GCSE’s two years early, we had such high hopes for him, but my father’s arrest and 12 years away from home, traumatised him and lead him to abandoning his studies as our father was not there his young sons and family needed him the most. Sometimes my siblings and I have been too embarrassed to say our father is in prison because of the automatic stigma people attach to someone in prison, they look at you and you feel they are thinking “no smoke without fire’’ your father must have done something to be in prison for that long.

There is so much I would like to say but time is short, but I would like to confine my issue today to highlight what happened at Long Lartin this Eid. My Father rang and pleaded with me to tell the “world’’, to tell the Muslims of the way he and other Muslim prisoners are being treated after they were denied Eid prayers with other Muslim prisoners and told to go to the sex offenders wing if they wanted to pray outside their cell. Every Prisoner knew this was deliberate tactic by the Prison to break my father and other inmates psychologically, to make them feel worthless on their holiest day, to make them feel defeated as Muslims and to remind them how much they hated Muslims and Islam in establishments like Prisons.

Unfortunately despite me emailing all known Muslim organisations and media channels, only one or two Muslim organisations highlighted their plight such as HHUGS and Cageprisoners, but not one single Muslim TV channel did this, despite there being so many Islamic channels on TV these days. What is the purpose of having Islamic channels if it is not used for those people begging to have a voice?

Instead all the so-called Muslim channels had singing Eid celebrations. No channel ran any feature on this incident when it should have been the headlines. And the saddest thing is my father rang to tell of the suffering they were going through and hoping Muslims outside will respond. He genuinely felt that it will make a difference and I did not have the heart to tell him that no one was interested.

Prisoners like my father want and need Muslims to respond outside, because inside prison they do NOT have a voice. All they are asking for is to give them a voice, a platform and a small amount of your time. It just reminds prisoners like my Father that the Ummah has not forgotten them and their families, that the Deen for which they are being tested for is worth fighting for to the very end and verily the help of Allah is near for those who believe.

 

Source: HHUGS