Al Jumhuriya – Translated by Alex Rowell With your abduction and disappearance for more than six years now, I have experienced the worst that any man can experience. It has also been the most unusual of all the many crimes and brutal acts committed in our world. We were not—you and I, specifically—strangers to unusual…

Middle East Eye As the decade comes to a close, I am faced with the dark truth that we live in a world far worse than we did 10 years ago - worse even than we dare admit to ourselves. You may think that I say this because the love of my life was forcibly…

Al Jumhuriya – Translated by Alex Rowell   “Do you see how beautiful the moon looks?” I ask you while we’re on our way home at night, crossing between the last minibus stop and our house in Qudsaya Suburb. “You’re even more beautiful!” I rush to answer my own question before you do. Other times…

Al Jumhuriya – Translated by Alex Rowell Sammour, I’ve written to you before about unpleasant things; happenings that shouldn’t have happened, and a world whose horizons have become dimmer in the years of your absence. This time, I write to you about what keeps hope alive, even in such a world: friendship; a great deal…

Al Jumhuriya - Translated by Alex Rowell The only day I’ve ever celebrated since your disappearance has been your birthday. I spend it, alone, with you. For weeks leading up to your birthday, Sammour, I have been thinking of how often a love of experience brought us together; a wish to take a risk; to…

Al Jumhuriya Five years. Sixty months. 260 weeks. 1,826 days. Sammour, I must have thought a thousand times about what I would do if I found myself face to face with the monsters who abducted you. I’d abduct their souls, in a nutshell; those dead souls that subsist by ruining life and restlessly spreading death…

Al Jumhuriya – Translated by Murhaf Fares On this day, twenty-seven years ago, you were released from prison, after four years, one month, and eleven days of a shorter absence. Today, you also complete four years, eleven months, and seventeen days of a longer absence, during which time I have known nothing about you, nor…

Al Jumhuriya - Translated by Alex Rowell Are you aware of what’s happening around you, Sammour? No doubt you can hear the sound of bombardment, and perhaps you can guess from the noise, and the behavior of your captors, that something is different this time. Very different, Sammour. It appears the Jaysh al-Islam emirate is…

Al-Jumhuriya - Translated by Murhaf Fares Sammour, you remember when I was about to move to my first apartment in Istanbul; I moved to that apartment four days after your abduction, and lived in it for about twenty-one months. I've been living in another apartment for around two years now. Both are relatively spacious, more…