fields.FIELD_NAME

Rule 35:

They call it Rule 35
a number in a system meant to save lives,
but mine was slipping silently
through bureaucratic hands,
like dust ignored in the corner of a prison cell.

I write this not for glory,
but because I am still here
an ex-detainee,
a survivor of pain stitched into silence.
A body scarred not just by the past,
but by the indifference of a country
that claims to stand for rights.

They examined me in Dover
not like a man,
but like a case file:
another ghost with trembling hands,
with eyes lost behind horrors
no report could rightly translate.

They said I was a victim of torture.
A doctor confirmed it.
Rule 35 was issued.
That was supposed to mean something.
Supposed to ignite justice.
Instead,
my cage remained sealed,
the bars welded
with the rust of disbelief.

Rule 35
a lifeline twisted into a noose.
Three articles,
three cries for help:
if you are sick,
if you want to die,
if you carry torture in your bones
report it.

But silence lives in the mouths
of those who should speak.
The GP did not write.
The official did not read.
The system did not care.

In 2019,
five cries of suicide made it through.
In some centres, not even one.
The rest?
Muted.
Ignored.
Erased.

My own pain
branded on my skin
was weighed against policy.
My scars debated
like a myth,
as if pain could be forged
without fire.

I swallowed pills.
Not to die.
But to finally be believed.
Only then did they notice:
not the man
but the liability.

A solicitor appeared,
face soft with truth.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
And with a single call,
I became human again.
Thirteen and a half weeks of slow unravelling
led to four impossible words:
“You are a free man.”

But freedom is not always release.
Not when
your mind still paces the cell.
Not when
Rule 35 becomes a monument to failure.
Not when
laws meant to protect
become walls that confine.

Every year,
they lock up the broken,
the trafficked,
the tortured
and call it policy.

In this kingdom
of clipped tongues and clipped wings,
we do not ask for mercy.
Only to be heard.
To not be disbelieved
because survival doesn’t look like
the script they wrote for us.

Rule 35
your ink may fade
but we,
the voices it ignored,
are rising.

We are the faultline.
We are the rupture
in your polished doctrine.
We are not ghosts.
We are the living memory
of every time
you looked away.