THE SILENCE IS THE WORST. When my twin brother, Paul Whelan, doesn’t call us from the Russian labor colony where he is held hostage, we worry. Well, we worry all the time. But particularly when he’s silent.
Paul calls home almost every day. When he doesn’t, it usually means the routine human rights abuses have become something else. We already know that Paul is woken every two hours every night. Imagine not being able to sleep for more than two hours at a time for two years. We also know he’s been put in solitary confinement for 30 days at a time. The United Nations describes that as torture.
Paul’s calls to our parents are such a lifeline. I have not spoken to Paul since October 2018 when
