Crises
Prisons in the eye of the storm
Analysis
Thematic paper
Crises
North America
South America
Asia
Europe
Oceania
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
Facilities
Overcrowding
Violence
Prisons, many of which are old and located in vulnerable areas, are being severely affected by climate change. What are prison administrations doing in response to these disasters? Overview.
Africa
Crises
Asia
Europe
Access to legal rights
Justice
Mary Lawlor is the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders since 2020. She tells us how her work, despite its limits, can help them, and reflects on the criminalisation they face around the world.
Crises
Middle East
Health
Mental health
Protest
Social ties
Iran
Three women political prisoners in Tehran’s Evin prison have gone on hunger and medicine strikes to protest their conditions and treatment.
Crises
Middle East
Torture
Violence
Israel
Israeli prison guards are taking photos and filming their abuse of Palestinian detainees, while the Israeli Prison Service says this is a ‘routine exercise’. Incarcerated Palestinian people have reported being subject to violence, and other forms of severe abuse and humiliation.
Africa
Crises
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Violence
Congo - Kinshasa
In attempting to describe Makala Prison - the scene of a deadly and failed breakout in the Democratic Republic of Congo - two people who have been inside used the exact same word: “hell”.“Makala is not a prison, but a detention centre resembling a concentration camp, where people are sent to die”.
Africa
Crises
Pre-trial detention
Access to legal rights
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Violence
Congo - Kinshasa
Families of those killed in what authorities called an attempted jailbreak in Congo’s biggest prison are demanding answers from the government as activists denounce what they say are inhumane conditions in the nation’s overcrowded penitentiaries.
Crises
Middle East
Justice
Drugs
Death penalty
Iran
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has voiced deep concern over the recent spate of executions in Iran. According to reports, Iranian authorities have executed at least 29 people across the country in a short period, following 38 executions in July.
Crises
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Torture
Violence
Israel
In a new 118-page report, the Israeli rights group B’Tselem accused the government of conducting a policy of institutionalised abuse and torture against all Palestinian detainees since 7 October.
Crises
Middle East
Justice
Protest
Death penalty
Iran
The “No Execution Tuesdays” campaign, a prisoner-led initiative against capital punishment in Iran, has entered its 25th consecutive week. This Tuesday, prisoners in Ardabil and Qaimshahr prisons participated in the campaign, expanding its reach to 11 prisons in the country.
Crises
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Iran
For the past twenty days, prisoners in Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj have faced significant issues with accessing clean water. During this period, the inmates have only had access to safe drinking water for seven hours a day, putting their health at serious risk.
Crises
North America
Health
Material conditions
Facilities
United States
Over the past two decades, nearly 13,000 people have perished behind bars during America’s summer months. However, many of these deaths are not typically attributed to heat, the product of poor death-counting practices that have led to an undercount of heat-related deaths for decades.
Crises
Middle East
Death penalty
Iran
For the past 19 weeks, prisoners across various Iranian prisons have been actively participating in a civil campaign against the death penalty.
In the campaign’s 19th week, eight political and religious prisoners from Ward 3 of Ghezelhesar Prison joined their ranks.
Crises
Middle East
Facilities
Iran
The Iranian Bureau of Prisons is set to construct 70 new prisons and penitentiaries across the country, according to a new report by data analysis group Iran Open Data. More than 1.128 trillion Tomans (approximately $19.1 million) have been allocated for these projects.
In prison, under bombardment
Portfolio
Crises
Europe
Material conditions
Facilities
Torture
Activities
Work
Ukraine
Photographer Cory Wright travelled to Ukraine in September 2023. While there, he captured glimpses of life during wartime in the penitentiary centres of Mykolaiv, Kryvyi Rih, Kharkiv and Iziaslav.
Crises
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Iran
Taleghani Hospital in Tehran declared it can no longer accept dialysis patients from Evin Prison, citing contamination of its facilities with bedbugs.
Crises
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Torture
Violence
Israel
Strapped down, blindfolded, held in diapers… At a military base that now doubles as a detention center in Israel’s Negev desert, an Israeli working at the facility snapped two photographs of a scene that he says continues to haunt him.
Crises
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Iran
Detention, interrogation, and incarceration, even under the best and most standardized conditions, foster an environment conducive to contracting various diseases.
