Testimony of Resilience and Honor

At the same time,

I do not diminish

the rights

of our Yemeni neighbor. They are of us and among us, and we

and they are Arabs. God willing, they will return to their Arab identity.

God willing.

What I want to assure you of is, by God, and God is witness,

I was between life and death, and I was not going anywhere.

My tongue speaks freely in a spacious place, not in a confined one.

But I say that they did not capture me.

And this.

So I may repay you some of your kindness and repay the homeland, first

of all. And repay you, who welcomed me

with this welcome that lifted seven

years of captivity off my shoulders. Captivity, my brothers, differs from prison.

You are with an enemy, whereas prison involves threats

and reform of the self. But prison is different, even if

it is. This is what happened, one hundred percent. And I assure you

that we found tribal men who treated you

with tribal honor,

with

religious and worldly principles, and this is a fact.

Arabs, from the beginning and even in the pre-Islamic era, never

shortchange

their adversary. Even if there is something in him, they give him

his due. If he has good principles, they say he has them, and if he

does not, they cover it up, they even cover it up...

They expose [the truth].

I was not captured, and that's the most important thing. By God,

I was not captured

unless my hand was over theirs.

By God, I don't know if the news has reached

your minds now, that I was not captured.

I was only captured with my hand over theirs,

and I was not weak or humiliated.

I retained my pride and dignity, and they, they

also preserved my pride and dignity.

But God is my witness, I was on top,

not underneath.

And I'm not saying this as boasting. By God, if it had happened that I was

underneath, I would say I was underneath, and there's no shame in that. This is war and captivity.

I was under the threat of a weapon, but they preserved my dignity.

And I fulfilled my duty with pride and dignity, without compromising my homeland,

honor, religion, wealth, or fellow citizens.

So I bring you good news.

Praise be to God, this is by God's grace, not through any bravery on my part.

This is by God's grace.