The Morning They Came for Us

Salat is the obligatory Muslim prayers, performed five times each day by the devout. The first, called Salat al-Fajr, is at dawn. Prayer takes place again at midday after the sun passes higher. This is called Salat al-Zuhr. Salat al-Asr comes in the late part of the afternoon, Salat al-Maghrib soon after sunset, and finally the Salat al-Isha between sunset and midnight.

‘Once you have been tortured,’ he told me, ‘you leave the human race.’