News
Middle East
Material conditions
Facilities
Turkey
The Parmakören T-type prison, a newly built prison complex, provides running water for only two hours a day. Families have expressed outrage, saying inmates are unable to shower, clean their cells, use the toilet or even wash their dishes. “Prison authorities need to find an immediate solution to t…
Source — Stockholm Center for Freedom
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Europe
Overcrowding
Hungary
“One day, the guards came in and told me to pack my bags because they were taking me to another prison – on the other side of the country. I couldn’t understand why. I heard back later that it was because of the overcrowding in the prisons. But where I went, it was even worse, there were more of us…
Source — Atlatszo.hu
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Europe
Health
Ireland
Senator Mary Seery Kearney spoke with prison officials in recent days after receiving a number of queries from members of the public. She said a scheme, which will be part of the Assisted Reproduction Bill, will allow prisoners to take part in fertility treatment and the service will be available t…
Source — The Irish Examiner
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Europe
Justice
Bosnia & Herzegovina
The draft amendments to the Criminal Code of the Republika Srpska (RS), which stipulates that a prison sentence of up to one year can be paid off by anyone, if they wish, instead of it being decided by a court, should be presented to the members of the National Assembly of RS (NARS) at the next ses…
Source — Sarajevo Times
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Australia: Queensland judge to receive apology after department refused to detail confinement of boy
News
Minors
Oceania
Justice
Australia
The public servant in charge of Queensland’s youth detention system has apologised for a government department’s refusal to provide the children’s court with information related to the prolonged solitary confinement of a boy, 13, with developmental disorders.
The judgment, reported by Guardian Aust…
Source — The Guardian
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Oceania
Mental health
Australia
Prisons are ungodly beasts – hard to understand for the average incarcerated soul, impossible to comprehend for neurodiverse people, who don’t process the world as the majority do.
In my experience, people come out of prisons in worse condition than they went in.
This is most certainly true of 40-y…
Source — The Age
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Central America and the Caribbean
Justice
Nicaragua
Nicaragua released 222 political prisoners, including an American citizen, in a deal negotiated with Washington that marks one of the biggest prisoner releases ever involving the United States, according to senior Biden administration officials.
The Nicaraguan government, which sought nothing in re…
Source — The New York Times
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Asia
Material conditions
India
To provide therapeutic treatment to prisoners suffering from neuro and lifestyle disorders, the authorities of Berhampur circle jail have set up a physiotherapy unit inside the prison. Several essential equipment required to run the unit have been procured from the donation provided by a physiother…
Source — The Times of India
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Asia
Material conditions
India
As many as 163 prisoners in Ajmer Central Jail have now turned literate, and 62 of them have started studying. Postcards are made available to prisoners to write regularly to their families and share their feelings with them.
“Many prisoners who came to this jail were illiterate, but now they are r…
Source — The Times of India
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Africa
Access to legal rights
Torture
Violence
Egypt
A new prison which Egypt touted as a model for reform and which holds some of its most prominent prisoners denies inmates healthcare and subjects them to punitive treatment including isolation, relatives of those inside and rights groups say.
Four prisoners died at the Badr facility because of medi…
Source — Reuters
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Middle East
Justice
Material conditions
Turkey
The families of prisoners held in the provinces of southeastern Turkey hit by a deadly February 6 earthquake have called on the Ministry of Justice for the conditional release of their family members, the Gazete Duvar news website reported.
Haluk Çavuşoğlu, chairman of the Fair Life Association, fo…
Source — Stockholm Center for Freedom
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Middle East
Facilities
Syria
At least twenty prisoners, believed to be jihadi militants, have escaped from a prison in Syria. The escape was enabled by the recent earthquake that damaged the prison, a source at the facility told Agence-France Presse.
Known as the “Black Prison” the military police prison was located in the tow…
Source — The Independent
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Europe
Torture
Violence
Poland
The report, published on Tuesday by the office of Poland’s commission for human rights, a state body, was written by the National Torture Prevention Mechanism (KMPT), which operates within the commissioner’s office.
KMPT alleges that inmates were dragged out of their cells and brought to unmonitore…
Source — Notes from Poland
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Asia
Protest
Myanmar (Burma)
On January 5 at around 11pm, four political prisoners were dragged from their cells in Pathein Prison and brutally beaten by prison authorities.
“They suddenly raided their rooms and found a mobile phone,” said Ko Kyaw Oo, a former political prisoner who now helps others in the Ayeyarwady Region ca…
Source — Frontier Myanmar
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Asia
Death penalty
Japan
At the January 27 press conference held at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward, the lawyers insisted that executions in Japan are being carried out in a state of secrecy, both to the Japanese public and the outer world, and called for more debate on the matter and for…
Source — The Mainichi
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Central America and the Caribbean
Facilities
El Salvador
Miguel Montenegro, director of the nongovernmental Human Rights Commission of El Salvador, has warned of the “risks of violence” in a prison he said would likely end up being badly overcrowded.
“There will most likely be more than the announced capacity of 40,000,” considering that 63,000 presumed…
Source — France 24
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Minors
Middle East
Turkey
According to main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) lawmaker Sezgin Tanrıkulu, thousands of women were unlawfully jailed in the aftermath of a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 due to their alleged links to the Gülen movement.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers…
Source — Stockholm Center for Freedom
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Europe
Justice
Facilities
Netherlands
Judges there will be able to handle the sessions of criminal cases, reducing the need to transfer detainees to courthouses elsewhere in the Netherlands. The small courtroom within the walls of the penitentiary will cost 15 million euros and is already under construction, wrote Legal Protection Mini…
Source — NL Times
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Minors
Middle East
Justice
Egypt
An Egyptian court on Sunday sentenced 22 children to lengthy prison sentences ranging between five and 15 years over rare anti-government protests that took place across the country four years ago.
The charges brought against the defendants included posting videos on YouTube calling for the protest…
Source — Middle East Eye
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