Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

Fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions made against prison and po­lice of­fi­cers of abuse of a “high-pro­file” pris­on­er, re­mand­ed pris­on­ers are ex­pect­ed to en­gage in a hunger strike from to­mor­row.

The strike, ac­cord­ing to prison sources, is to high­light al­leged op­pres­sion dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment dis­clos­ing the pro­posed hunger strike that was re­leased on Tues­day via the so­cial me­dia plat­form, the pris­on­ers are call­ing for speedy tri­als for those ac­cused of mur­ders; rea­son­able bail for pet­ty of­fend­ers; the im­me­di­ate re­lease of all re­mand­ed in­mates from Build­ing 13 at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP); cloth­ing and med­ica­tion re­quests from their re­spec­tive fam­i­ly mem­bers and a full scale in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leged gov­ern­ment in­volve­ment in ob­tain­ing and tor­tur­ing re­mand­ed pris­on­ers housed at build­ing 13 (MSP).

“It is al­ready a present sit­u­a­tion where re­mand­ed in­mates are be­ing held against their will with­out a tri­al date for as long as 15 to 17 years on Re­mand. We are now faced with the COVID-19 virus…Prison of­fi­cers can­not en­sure the safe­ty of these re­mand­ed in­mates un­der these in­hu­mane con­di­tion’s. Many are of the view that their lives are be­ing com­pro­mised and the dreams of be­ing free and re­unit­ing with their fam­i­lies are things that might nev­er be pos­si­ble. So we are ask­ing for a speedy tri­al or an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to the re­lease or dis­charge of all mur­der ac­cused from this in­fect­ed en­vi­ron­ment,” the state­ment said.

“The im­me­di­ate re­lease of all re­mand­ed in­mates from Build­ing 13 who are fac­ing hu­mil­i­a­tion and a high lev­el of op­pres­sion by the same po­lice of­fi­cers who charged and ac­cused these in­di­vid­u­als for crimes they did not com­mit…they are in­no­cent un­til proven guilty. We are well aware that some of the po­lice of­fi­cers and prison of­fi­cers who are present­ly as­signed by the com­mis­sion­er of po­lice are in­fect­ed by the Covid-19 and are cur­rent­ly jeop­ar­diz­ing the lives of these in­no­cent ac­cuse in­di­vid­u­als at Build­ing13,” it added.

The state­ment, which was be­lieved to have been pre­pared by a group of in­mates, claimed that Build­ing 13 is an “in­hu­mane en­closed en­vi­ron­ment per­fect for the breed­ing of the Covid-19.”

The T&T Prison Ser­vice, in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse said that the state­ment re­flects the views of “a few dis­grun­tled pris­on­ers, some of whom, in March of this year, ri­ot­ed and de­stroyed an en­tire wing in the Re­mand prison as a re­sult of the same is­sues high­light­ed in their writ­ten mes­sage, name­ly Covid-19 trans­mis­sion and ex­ten­sive court de­lays.”

Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Den­nis Pul­chan has con­demned the ac­tions of these few in­di­vid­u­als, who, he said are seek­ing to “un­der­mine the ex­ten­sive ef­forts of the Prison Ser­vice to keep them safe.”

Pul­chan said skip­ping a meal is a pris­on­er’s choice which is fa­cil­i­tat­ed, record­ed and their well-be­ing en­sured.  

He said while the Prison Ser­vice has no au­thor­i­ty with­in the ju­di­cial sys­tem, COVID-19 in the na­tion’s pris­ons be­came un­avoid­able with the in­tro­duc­tion of com­mu­ni­ty spread. 

“With a pris­on­er pop­u­la­tion of over 3,800, the Prison Ser­vice has record­ed five pris­on­ers test­ing pos­i­tive for the virus, all from the Port-of-Spain State Prison.

Two have ful­ly re­cov­ered and three are still un­der quar­an­tine. Pris­on­ers are con­tin­u­ous­ly mon­i­tored and there is a pro­to­col to be ob­served, should any­one dis­play any symp­toms or com­plain about feel­ing un­well,” Pul­chan said.

“In ad­di­tion to the guide­lines set out by the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion and the Min­istry of Health, sev­er­al dras­tic mea­sures have been im­ple­ment­ed dur­ing the course of the pan­dem­ic, in an ef­fort to keep all charges safe. The ces­sa­tion of phys­i­cal vis­its and courts which led to the in­tro­duc­tion of vir­tu­al vis­its and court ap­pear­ances, the dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of re­ceiv­ing items from out­side the prison and the com­mis­sary sys­tem which al­lows friends and rel­a­tives to de­posit mon­ey on an ac­count which al­lows for pur­chase of any item in the can­teen,” he added. 

Fur­ther, in or­der to con­tain the spread of the virus, Pul­chan said that the pris­ons’ op­er­a­tional pro­ce­dures were ad­just­ed at the detri­ment of re­duced staff, as they have been ad­vised not to re­port for du­ty if any symp­toms are ex­pe­ri­enced, but to seek med­ical at­ten­tion at the near­est health fa­cil­i­ty. 

A Covid Com­mand Cen­tre has been set-up and is in op­er­a­tion, in or­der to man­age, record, mon­i­tor, eval­u­ate and aid in de­ci­sion mak­ing, for both staff and charges, ac­cord­ing to the Prison Ser­vice.