Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): What can Yousef A-Dairy do when two pains have taken over his life, each pain greater than the other; a pain in the body and an ache in the heart.

As for the pain that hit his body,

Yousef Hassan Jassim, 24, suffers from severe pain in his bones, which accumulated as a result of negligence and lack of treatment until it affected his teeth and all the bones in his body. Yousef's family told Bahrain Mirror that he was denied treatment and deprived of proper nutrition needed by his body. Prison meals have not been providing sources of calcium since February of this year, causing osteoporosis issues to some of the prisoners.

The prison administration stalled Yousef's treatment, who recently suffered from abnormal swelling in the abdomen due to prison food that did not suit his body.

In the only time Yousef was taken to the prison infirmary after a long wait, the Sudanese doctor refused to examine and treat him on the grounds that it was not the time specified for him. When Yousef refused to leave without treatment, the doctor called the police officer who pulled him out dragging him on the ground outside.

Yousef also suffers from a severe dry eyes problem, unable to open his eyes until long after he wakes up from his sleep. Months before, he had undergone lasik surgery in Iran. All he needed was eye drops to treat dryness, but even this simple treatment is not available to him inside the prison.

Yousef was arrested on February 11, 2017, a day or so after his first child was born. He was accused of traveling to Iran for military training there. Yousef brought medical reports proving that he had gone there for treatment. The issued visa and hospital reports prove that he underwent the operation on the same day he entered the country, yet the court convicted him, sentencing him to life imprisonment.

As for his heartache,

It is due to his infant son, Ahmed, who is only two years old. Yousef only held his son, Ahmed, on his birthday on February 9, 2017. He was then arrested immediately.

Ahmed does not see his father except through a glass sound and touch proof barrier, and meets him only once a month. Ahmed does not have a beautiful memory with his father. Yousef is unable to be the father who goes out with him to play and makes him sleep on his lap, but rather someone whom he sees in pain living in a dark place that is cut off from the world. Ahmed became distant from his father.

Ahmed refuses to go visit his father in prison and refuses to talk to him and respond to his calls. The family tries in every way to endear his father to him. They mention his father's name in all the small and large details, give him gifts, toys and enroll him in entertainment programs in the name of his father. However, the effect of this doesn't last long, it disappears at the first moment of his visit, when Ahmed sees his father behind that dreaded glass barrier that cut off all forms of communication. Ahmed goes in a shock, before bursting into tears and screaming to get out of the place.

Those who are yousef's age are building their lives and future. Yousef was one of them before he was arrested in 2012 during the political events on charges of assembling and rioting. He had just graduated high school, spent two years in prison, and then decided to pursue his university studies. He studied civil engineering. At the same time, he secured a job to support himself and married in 2016. He was; however, arrested for a second time, and this time he was sentenced to life imprisonment and does not know what awaits him and his son Ahmed.

Arabic Version