40 Days Gone: Hassan Almrei On Day 40 of Hunger Strike from Toronto Solitary Confinement Cell; Mohammad Mahjoub Also Hunger Striking for Over Three Weeks

AUGUST 1, 2005 - Do you remember the last ten days of June, or perhaps the long hot days of July? Do you remember anything specific about what you have done during that time? Taken a nice long walk, perhaps? Bought a new CD and sat back listening to great music? Maybe enjoyed the goodness of summer fruits and vegetables, had a good post-dinner read sitting under a tree? Embraced someone you care about? These things seem, to many of us, so easy, so much so that they fade into memory because they are so common to our daily lives that they are almost unremarkable. Imagine, though, that everything you have just remembered of the past 40 days did not happen. That there was no food, no music, no books, no leisurely strolls, no real access to fresh air, no hugs or handshakes. And you have spent that time in a space no larger than the average bathroom, with an open toilet. Welcome to the world of Hassan Almrei, Syrian refugee, secret trial detainee, who has spent almost four full years in a 9 X 12 concrete solitary confinement cell in Toronto. Faced daily with the possibility that the Canadian government will deport him to torture in Syria -- even after its own internal documents acknowledge the government does not even have enough scraps of so-called evidence to lay a criminal charge against Hassan -- he is also trying to deal with problems much closer to home.