Being plucked from a Baghdad café and deposited in a cell block for political prisoners is a wakeup call for Aziz. Although never charged with any offense, he must adjust to a lengthy stay in prison. The police supervisor encourages Aziz to think of a simple crime to which he can confess so he can be charged and eventually released. Based on the author's own incarceration in Iraq, Cell Block Five is an indictment of man's gratuitous inhumanity to man, pointing out that the transition from tortured to torturer, can be an easy one.
