Friday, July 22, 2011

The Way I feel

The Way I Feel: Laila Yaghi on ‘life’ without her son Ziyad

22JUL
From the moment Ziyad was born, he was a good and quite son who gave me little trouble. He was patient and cared about me deeply and would cry if he saw me crying. Now he is in jail for a simple visit he took overseas! He has been in jail for two years for doing nothing! I want every one to keep in mind that my son DID NOT harm anyone. So why is he in jail then?!

The Way I Feel

Every minute of the day I think of my son. Not one minute that passes by, passes with out me thinking about him. The first thing that comes on my mind when I wake up is my son and many times I cry and he is the last thing that comes on my mind before I go to bed.
Crying is now a normal activity in my life. I could be laughing with one of my co-workers but I feel excruciating pain, deep inside me as if a razor is cutting my heart. As soon as the laughter leaves my face, I feel that tears are about to drop. All my friends abandoned me except for one who also seems to have gotten sick and tired of seeing me sad all the time. Who wants to be around a person who is mourning constantly over her son?
When I sip my coffee in the morning, I feel as if I am sipping poison. I don’t enjoy anything in life; Food I eat just to survive and cannot taste it and most of the time I force myself to eat so I won’t starve.
I am educated but am forced to work at a restaurant because I cannot focus. I cry even at work. I try my hardest to be strong but my son is my heart and there is no way a mother cannot feel her son’s pain! Many times I will be at work and start crying and would have to leave or I would rush to the bathroom to wash my face so no one will notice that I was crying, only to realize that I cannot stop crying. I cried the other day at work for over an hour in the bathroom and then got so embarrassed and could not go out in front of the customers and my co-workers with puffy eyes and red cheeks!
Then just a couple of days ago, I went to bring something out of the cooler and started to cry, and cried for over an hour in the cooler and had to go home which does not help me financially at all. Most of the time, I am barely making it because of me cutting my hours at work and being forced to work a job that does not pay much!
Most people don’t understand because they are not in my shoes and I will often hear some insensitive remarks like, “at least he is still alive”! How can I bring myself to not be tortured every second of the day when I know my beloved son is sitting in a tiny cell not seeing the sun, his young life being interrupted, and is mistreated in jail?!
It is as if you see your son being thrown in a fire and your hands are tied by your enemy and you cannot do anything about it.
These days that my son is in jail are taken away from us, they cannot be compensated! Time wasted. Many times these guards put my son in lock down for no apparent reason. Sometimes he does not even know why he is in lock down.
And to make things worse, his ankle has been swollen for 9 months and they are refusing to treat it,
Savages! How can a country that is supposed to be a first world country lack so much civility when treating its own people?!

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Justice has to be given to Ziyad

I want every one to imagine that your son went looking for his roots and after coming back from a trip overseas a nightmare began!  The most unimaginable nightmare!  A young man's life has been shattered and interrupted just because he went to visit family members overseas

Ziyad Yaghi went to Jordan and Egypt in 2007 (only 19 at the time) with his best friend Omar and after two years or more was charged with conspiracy to kill and maim people abroad and material support!  Now every one must keep in mind that my son, Ziyad did NOT harm any one,  yet he is facing a life sentence!
My poor innocent son has been incarcerated for two year!  Two long years just because he took a simple visit overseas and now is awaiting trial in September of this year!