In the Maldives, my family's life was very different. When I was 11 years old, my older cousin, Mohamed Nasheed, was imprisoned for his journalism, drawing attention to the corruption in the Maldivian Government. Anni, as we called him, was detained for months and tortured. The question "Would he come home?" hung over my aunt's head like a guillotine. That year, Anni was named Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, and a global campaign eventually secured his release. Since then, I've lost count of the times that he was arrested, beaten, harassed, or exiled while campaigning peacefully for democracy.