NPR / YouTube Mohamed Barud was a 31-year-old newlywed when he was sentenced to life in prison in Somalia. This was 1981. Somalia was ruled by a military dictator, Siad Barre. And Mohamed's crime, if you can call it that, was writing a letter complaining about conditions at the local hospital, a complaint the government saw as treasonous. Mohamed was put in solitary confinement. "It was strictly forbidden to talk to your neighbors. So you walk forward and backward." Just three short steps. In the silence, Mohamed is thinking about his young wife, Ismahan. She was 20 years old, a teller at the state bank. "I could not imagine how she is because there's no news from the outside world." He started to wonder: Would she wait for him? "The government was encouraging wives [of prisoners] to divorce their husbands." They had only been married for a few months. And he was sentenced to life. In the dark, in the silence, he started to resent her. "You think she's probably enjoying herself. She's
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