12 years in a Chinese prison

A moving story at The Free Press about Mark Swidan who spent 12 years in a Chinese prison on trumped up charges. Basically totalitarian states arrest random US citizens from time top time to use as bargaining chips to get their spies etc released. Some extracts:

For more than a decade, he had been served two meals a day, the same meal every meal: a bowl of mushy, yellowish rice with a quarter-size morsel of pork fat. Sometimes, there would be boiled bits of pumpkin or cabbage.

Swidan, who is 6-feet-2, said: “I was 225 pounds when I went in, and then I went down to the 120s, and I was about 140, 145 when I got out.”

In prison, they rarely let him outside. His immune system had taken a hit from the lack of sun. He also got frequent fungal infections—mostly from showering on grimy, concrete floors. “It would go all over your head and face and down your neck,” he said. He would get red and splotchy. It made sleeping for weeks at a time nearly impossible.

The aftereffects were visible: His skin was covered in tiny lines and scars. And his teeth were a mess. His eyesight had been compromised.

Worst of all were his hands—over the years, he’d broken lots of bones in his fingers and wrists and hands from fights with other prisoners but mostly with guards. “I’m not the guy who’s just going to stand there when you threaten me,” Swidan said. “Someone would put his finger in my face, and I’d knock him the fuck out, and there would be four or five of them—I didn’t give a shit. You’ve given me two death penalties already.” He learned how to scrounge for bits of cardboard and tape so he could set his broken fingers. The Air Force doctors in San Antonio said there wasn’t a lot they could do about his hands. “They said it’s worse to rebreak and then fix them,” he said.

What is scary is this could happen to anyone randomly.

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