|
 Human rights report urges action against prisoner abuse
THE Human Rights Watch report on prison health conditions in Zambia has asked the Zambia Prisons Service and the Ministry of Home Affairs to prohibit the use of penal block practices and discipline staff and inmates for abuses against prisoners.
The report which was conducted between September 2009 and February 2010 by the Prisons Care and Counseling Association (PRISCCA), the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) and the Human Rights Watch interviewed 246 prisoners, eight former prisoners, 30 prison officers and conducted facility tours at six prisons throughout the central corridor of Zambia.
The report which was released on Tuesday stated that inmate health problems were exacerbated by practices prohibited under international law such as officers’ corporal punishment or ‘penal block’ isolation, where prisoners were stripped naked and left in a small, windowless cell while officers pour water onto the floor to reach ankle or mid calf height.
It stated that there was no toilet in the cell, so inmates stand in water containing their own excrement.
“Certain inmates appointed as cell captains by officers are also given disciplinary authority and mete out punishments through night time courts in their cells and beatings. Beatings are particularly harsh when aimed at inmates engaging in same sex sexual activity.
At prisons with associated farm facilities, punishment is fierce and inmates’ hard labour conditions closely resemble slave labour,” it stated.
One inmate at Mukobeko Maximum Security Prison stated that, “I went to the penal block one time, but I only stayed for one night because I was coughing up blood and they were afraid I would die. But others stay for two days, 21 days or 30 days.
It’s dirty there, not fit for humans. That’s where they used to keep people to be hang when there were still executions. It has four rooms. It’s hell all on its own.
They remove your clothes, put you in one of the ones and pour two buckets of water in there with you. Then you get a penal diet- it’s the same food but just less. One of our friends was taken there and beaten to death.”
The organisations recommend that President Rupiah Banda should issue a public statement identifying prison conditions and health care in prisons as a national crisis.
They also recommend that the Zambian Parliament should immediately cease the practice of sweeping, group arrests which violate international law, by amending the law to limit the powers to carry out such arrests currently enjoyed by the police and the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC).
It asks the Zambian Parliament to address overcrowding by taking steps to expand parole eligibility, allocate funding for supervision of community based sentence and secure enough funding for the prison budget to ensure conditions consistent with international standards.
The report stated that funding should be sought for facility renovation, upgrading water and sanitation facilities, adequate food, the provisions of basic necessities and adequate prison-based health services.
(2010-05-01 / postzambia.com)
|
首頁 
聯絡我們
