Testimonial
— Published 14 November 2017.

In 2015, Renaud Meysonnier set off on a trip from France to Asia. A few months later, at the border between India and Nepal, he was arrested for using counterfeit currency, and sentenced to a year in prison. Renaud spent one month in the small Nepalese prison of Bhairahawa, and was subsequently transferred to the prison in Kathmandu, the capital. This is his story.

I have to share a single mattress with a teenager and a guy who has long curly hair. We lie down head to toe on our sides. Everybody sleeps three to a mattress.

It seems to be customary to shout one’s number as loud as possible, like a wild beast. Sometimes you can hear the shouts from other dormitories along the other courtyard, over the high walls.

"That’s what we call the P-Gate, the prison’s antechamber. There are 120 of us in this yard which was designed to hold 40."

"I’m not going along with it, I’m a big brother. You don’t realize, I’ve been in this place for three and a half years! What do you want me to do? I do it to pass the time."