How not to spend your twenties

How did you spend your twenties? (Or, if you are younger, how do you hope to be spending them?)

I graduated from university, started my first job as a trainee lawyer, and plunged myself into London’s social life. And I grew up: I bought my own flat, did human rights work in India and Rwanda, and I met my husband.

Get a degree, start a career, get a place to live, find a partner – it’s what many people hope to get out of their twenties. It’s certainly what Naheem Hussain and Rehan Zaman, two young men from Birmingham, were dreaming of. And then something happened to shatter all those dreams. In their early twenties, the two boys went on a family holiday to Pakistan. Two men were murdered in the village where they were staying – and Naheem and Rehan were arrested. At this point, they could be forgiven for thinking the misunderstanding would soon be cleared up and they would be released. After all, the police had no evidence that Naheem and Rehan were connected to the crime. But instead, the Pakistani police officers simply decided to fabricate the evidence they needed. Their method: torture. For two weeks, Naheem and Rehan were savagely beaten, hung upside down, had their fingernails pulled out, cigarettes stubbed out on their wrists, and had chillies rubbed in their eyes, until they confessed and confirmed that the guns the police had planted were the murder weapons. Unbelievably, the British government, which knew this was happening to two of their nationals, did nothing to try and stop the torture.

Naheem and Rehan have now spent the greatest part of their twenties in prison – seven years. Never mind that they have yet to be convicted of any crime. Never mind that lab reports subsequently proved that the guns the police said were the murder weapons did not match the bullets which killed the victims. And if the two lads are found to be guilty – a distinct possibility, since the judge in their trial did not throw out the evidence obtained through torture, as by law he should – they will face death by hanging.

In a recent cruel twist, the local government in the province of Azad Jammu and Kashmir passed a temporary law, valid for three months only, which says that anyone in pre-trial detention whose case is not tried within two years is entitled to bail. Naheem and Rehan have been in jail for nearly four times that amount, so naturally their hopes of release soared. But then, shockingly, the judge unlawfully denied their bail application, for no good reason. So, unless Naheem and Rehan manage to have the decision overturned on appeal (an appeal which Reprieve has helped them prepare), it now looks as if they may well turn thirty in prison. No wonder the two young men have reported to Reprieve that they feel deeply depressed.

I sometimes try to imagine what it would be like to be Naheem or Rehan; to spend my twenties in an overcrowded prison somewhere in Pakistan – but frankly, I can’t really get my head around it. And I wish I didn’t have to.