219daysoflondon: 11/1/11

Atif Rafay was sentenced to three consecutive life terms in 2004 for the murders of his mother, father and sister ten years earlier. The police had no physical evidence that Rafay committed the crime so they used what is called the “Mr. Big” scenario which involves undercover agents pretending to be high level crooks (the Mr Big tactic it is illegal in the United States). Rafay was an eighteen year old art student at Cornell University at the time of the murders and has always maintained his innocence.

Rafay recently wrote an essay for The Walrus titled "On the Margins of Freedom" which explores his definition of freedom, an interesting topic for someone to discuss whose life since they were eighteen has and always will be spent behind bars.

This article was a reminder of how much power writing holds in delivering emotion and how words can create a voice of sadness, happiness, anger or mystery. In the case of “On the Margins of Freedom”, this essay held such feelings of sadness that I found myself holding back tears while reading it. I was also reminded while reading this essay the power journalism has to give readers insight to parts of the world we have never come in contact with, situations that seem so far beyond anything we could ever understand. I was reminded how much power journalism has to let a reader take on feelings they would never otherwise experience. For example, the paragraph I am about to read opened my eyes to the world of prison, something I have never experienced but now feel like I have a deeper understanding of, beyond Hollywood clichés:

It is rage rather than freedom that I have come to understand most in prison. I was always more disposed to laughter than to anger, and thought fury a brazen confession of moronic monstrosity. But fury is not so alien to me today. I sometimes wonder how the free might feel if they could know what feelings the prisons they have built can inspire in those forced to live in them. There is no respite from fury in prison. I now need only think of certain things, and hatred from tiny points engulfs the world. When I think of years spent lying awake from the cold, though there were piles of blankets ready; when I think of the years spent without a note of music, though forced to listen to vulgar conversations yelled from cell to cell in the night; when I think of the boorish bureaucrats manipulating the mechanisms of misery with their misspelled memos; when I think of the years without dental floss; when I think of these years wasted by the complacent and comfortable, by the ignorant and the indifferent; when I think of all this completely unnecessary cruelty and then of that world that can find it possible to be upset over desserts that do not turn out right at Christmas — then rage unfolds, and it is possible to wish to bring down the world in ruins. -Atif Rafay, On the Margins of Freedom

As I researched the trail of Rafay, I wondered if he had used the power of words to his advantage in this essay. The words he used were complex, his writing style highly academic, his ideas of freedom all backed up by literary examples which set himself up as someone who should be taken seriously. Rafay did not once mention that he was innocent but his essay made me feel very sympathetic towards him. After reading more about the murder case, I wondered if it is possible to separate his guilt/innocence from the intelligence of his essay, or if he could use his intelligence as a tool to gain sympathy for readers. The murder case was very complex and in many ways hazy left the public with two very opposed opinions. Rafay’s piece of writing reminded me how much power journalism has to sway an opinion and how it is the reader’s responsibility to form their own opinions based on the ones they read.