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Wrongly Imprisoned
By lynmiller-lachmann on 2010-12-20 14:55:46
Several posts on this blog have discussed individuals who were wrongfully arrested and imprisoned because they fit an
ethnic or religious profile, despite the flimsiness of evidence linking them to an actual crime. For instance, Oregon attorney
Brandon Mayfield, a convert to Islam, was arrested in conjunction with the 2004 terrorist bombings in Madrid. Following
the September 11 attacks, Mayfield believed he was under surveillance, and in May 2004, weeks after the deadly attacks in
Spain, his worst nightmares came true. Authorities claimed a set of fingerprints on a backpack in Madrid were his even
though he insisted he hadn’t left the North American continent in more than a decade. Mayfield was held incommunicado
and transferred from prison to prison for two weeks until Spanish authorities acknowledged their mistake and the
international press broke the story of his secret detention. In an earlier post, I reviewed Dave Eggers’s Zeitoun, the account
of a Syrian-born Muslim American’s three-week detention as a suspected terrorist following Hurricane Katrina. Far from
being a terrorist, Abdulrahman Zeitoun had used his rowboat to save people during the storm, and during his detention, this
businessman and pillar of the community was also held incommunicado and in secret. Two
recently published novels for teen readers draw from these incidents—and many others—to portray the experiences of those
wrongly imprisoned and their families. Anna Perera’s 2009 novel Guantanamo Boy (Penguin UK) is inspired by the plight
of the dozen or so prisoners at Guantanamo Bay who were, at the time of their arrest, under the age of 18. Perera is a prolific
author of books for young people in the United Kingdom, though few of her books have been published in the United States;
in fact, Guantanamo Boy is only available in the U.S. as an e-book. In this novel, Khalid, a British teenager of Pakistani
heritage, finds himself in a succession of U.S.-run secret prisons when his family travels to Pakistan to visit an ailing
relative. Like many teenage boys, Khalid enjoys massive multiplayer online role playing games, but while he continues his
online play in Pakistan (like many a teenage boy who spends a holiday not seeing the sights but rather staying up all night
with the computer and game controller), authorities interpret the game as a front for a terrorist cell. Over the course of two
years, Khalid is kept awake for days, waterboarded, placed in solitary confinement, and held incommunicado, finally ending
up in the notorious Guantanamo prison, where he nearly loses his mind. The scenario under which 15-year-old Khalid finds
himself in U.S. custody accused of terrorism may seem a bit far-fetched, but so were the circumstances surrounding the
imprisonment of Mayfield and Zeitoun. The narrative is vivid and compelling, and Perera visually depicts Khalid breaking
down by having the words themselves smash into each other or come apart on the page. At times, the novel suffers from
having too many scenes that are similar, giving the story a static feel that reflects the numbing experience of being in prison
incommunicado for years but makes for difficult reading. However, her portrayal of Khalid’s multiethnic community in
northern England coming together to secure his release and to welcome him home is compelling and inspiring. Ethnic
profiling and wrongful imprisonment are also the themes of award-winning Canadian author Allan Stratton’s 2010 novel
Borderline (HarperCollins). Unlike Guantanamo Boy, Borderline is widely available in the
United States and has received many accolades, including a nomination for the American Library Association’s Best Fiction
for Young Adults list. Borderline is set in suburban Rochester, New York. Fifteen-year-old Mohammed Sami Sabiri—
Sammy to his friends—chafes against his Iranian-born father’s restrictions and the obligations of his Muslim upbringing,
preferring to hang out with his two best buddies from his neighborhood. In fact, his father’s decision to send Sami to a
private school (where he is the target of the bigoted school bully) to separate him from his hard-partying friends is a major
source of resentment. When his father uninvites him on a trip to Toronto and a friend’s parents file for divorce due to his
dad’s infidelity, Sami begins to suspect his own father of having an affair in Toronto. Then FBI agents raid his house, haul
his father away, and charge Dr. Sabiri with passing biological weapons to a terrorist group. Sami, who had been trying to
uncover his father’s “affair,” now sneaks into Canada with his friends to locate the alleged terrorist cell and prove his
father’s innocence. Stratton reveals the widespread prejudice against Muslims that makes Sami’s life at his exclusive private
school so miserable, and the novel shows how the government’s claim of classified evidence makes it nearly impossible for
terrorism suspects to prove their innocence. It is only by a near-miracle that Sami is able to locate and use the evidence to
exonerate his father. The fast-paced and suspenseful novel has a happy ending, but countless real stories—including several
in upstate New York—do not. Disclosure: I purchased the e-book of Guantanamo Boy from Amazon, as it isn’t available in
any other form in the United States. I received Borderline as a review copy from the publisher.
