Dear All,

I have been busy helping my sister who has recently returned from Iraq. It was hectic trying to settle her and the kids again after she and her Iraqi husband H left everything behind them in Baghdad. Now they need to start a fresh life. Her husband who survived the Iran-Iraq war ran away during the invasion of Kuwait in 1991. Following years of hardship in foreign lands he decided about 10 years later to take his chance and return voluntarily home because he was fed up of being constantly on the run. H was hoping for a presidential pardon but instead he was court marshaled as a deserter and sentenced to seven years of prison by Saddam’s men . Once in prison, a similarity in names between a wanted political dissident served to send him -a soft spoken professor of music- to the torture chamber and places which make Abu Ghraib seem benign in comparison

My sister spent a harrowing time trying to find him and prove to the authorities that he was only an army deserter not a political dissident plotting Saddam’s downfall. Her tales of journeying from one government official to another and from building to another and from one known prison to another would break your heart. She did not disappear simply because she was not Iraqi and had made her presence known at the Syrian embassy in Baghdad. My sister tasted hunger, fear and humiliation. She felt the bitter cold and the searing heat, She gave birth in unhygienic circumstances and her baby boy is a living testament to God’s will. When she recounted those episodes to me, I felt like I had stepped into a movie scene or a novel. Those things could not happen in this day and age. Or could they ?

She has aged beyond her years and her one time red hair is now mostly grey. Her sparkling eyes seem whitewashed to me from crying and I am left wondering how long she would need to recover. I will not recount how she got her husband out of that tight spot because that would jeopardize many people’s lives and anonymity especially with occupied Iraq and despite Saddam no longer being boss. But I will say one thing that she managed to clear his name and he was brought to prison where he could be visited at least, and serve his desertion sentence. In October 2002 , he was set free along with about 10 000 others through a Presidential amnesty.