Introduction and Welcome

Dear friend and pilgrim, as you pause upon this threshold you should consider what it is like to live here.

Our doors are locked. Some rooms have no windows. All other windows are locked and barred. This is not a place where you can come and go freely.

There are people living here who have been denied basic human rights. Some are held without trial or knowing the charges against them. Others are here as enemies of the state because of their friends, their beliefs, their associations.

Some of these people are tortured for information they do not have. They occupy rooms full of pain and fear. Others are being held hostage in support of causes they cannot understand. You cannot see them but you must know that they are here. They long to tell you their stories. They long for help. They long for justice.

For as long as you visit these spaces you are not free. You cannot release the prisoners. You can find out more but you should consider all knowledge dangerous.

The cell-spaces in our house are accessible to you, but in each space you have only the status of visitor and you should remember that permission to be there can be withdrawn at any time. There are guards everywhere. In many of the spaces Christians are regarded with suspicion and as dangerous subversives.

Bishop Brian