My father was recently a political prisoner. At 77 yo, he once was declared on liberty just to take him back after many hours standing waiting for his release, that never came. He said he was 20 hours standing, but the records only showed ~11 hours. Nevertheless, the next day I visited he had an audience but he couldn’t stand. They put him in a wheelchair so he could attend. The audience was gonna be about his release that couldn’t happen the day before, and the judge felt and stated the wheelchair thing could be a charade, because the records showed he was “only” 11 hours, tops, waiting for his release. His condition was bad, he barely slept. I had to pull him out of the wheelchair so he could pee, and months later he lost a toe, almost a foot, because his legs were failing to irrigate enough blood.

There was some equipment “failure” during the audience. It was suspended and the room was changed in the very moment. After the failure, it was resolved that my father had to stay in prison, because he still represented a danger for society, an activist with a career of 50 years. When I went to UNO, they told me that torture was absolutely difficult to prove, and prosecuting torture was basically a deadend in this case. They also completely drop interest in my father’s case, and stop responding to my communications, they basically ghosted me. Torture was common in that prison, I met a man who went blind in four days. He’s still there.