Why A Pakistani Academic has been in Solitary Confinement For A Decade: The Story of Junaid Hafeez
Words by Noor Shahid
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Why A Pakistani Academic has been in Solitary Confinement For A Decade: The Story of Junaid Hafeez by Noor Shahid
It’s 2010 and Pakistani radio station FM 103 is introducing young graduate, Junaid Hafeez, with a long list of accolades: a gold medal in FSC; acceptance into Lahore’s King Edward Medical College, poetry publications, and a postgraduate degree from Jackson State University in Literature, Photography, and Theatre, fully funded by the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship. Junaid jokes that he doesn’t recognize himself with such a grand introduction, his measured, humble laugh rolling into free-flowing conversation.
A self-proclaimed romantic, he speaks about not wanting to live a linear path so that he has something to write about in his future autobiography; about poetry and music and love in a materialistic world: “Love frees you from the dimensions of time and space (...) Time is not absolute. You can spend ten years in a moment, and ten years later, you feel as if you’re in the same place.”
Three years later, Junaid Hafeez is arrested on charges of blasphemy.
Ten years later, Junaid Hafeez is still incarcerated in solitary confinement.