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Mutiny in a Buenos Aires jail
(CNN Spanish) - The pandemic exacerbates the crisis of the penitentiary system in Argentina, declared in emergency due to overpopulation in 2019. This Friday, a revolt of detainees broke out in the federal unit of Devoto, located in the City of Buenos Aires, where some The first four positive cases of covid-19 were confirmed in prison staff within ten days, as reported by CNN.
A spokesman for the Federal Penitentiary Service told CNN that the protest of the detainees is in demand for the prison overcrowding and the "delay" of the judges to enable home prisons. The Justice Ministry is leading a negotiating table with the detainees' delegates to try to end the riot, the ministry said.
During Friday morning, a group of detainees took part of the prison facilities and reached the roof of the building, according to a CNN team at the scene. The inmates who faced the prison staff demand to be released, given the impossibility of the system to guarantee preventive social isolation against the coronavirus.
Authorities say they are taking measures to prevent the spread of covid-19 in federal prisons, such as vaccinating all prisoners against the flu, reinforcing hygiene measures and controlling symptoms in prison staff. In addition, visits were suspended.
The Devoto prison is the only prison complex located in the City of Buenos Aires. It houses around 1,800 federal prisoners, all of them male seniors, many on remand.
The Argentine government reported that, so far, there are no infected prisoners in the federal system, where some 14,000 people are housed and there are around 1,200 detainees beyond the capacity of the prisons. 55% have no sentence, according to the Nation's Penitentiary Office.
Authorities from this institution appeared at the Devoto unit and were trying to enter the prison to supervise the situation, a spokesman for the executive control body reported.
Manuel Tufró, director of the Justice and Security area of the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), maintained that this situation "was seen to come." "Although the Executive has released a list of people deprived of their liberty who could access a home prison to decompress the overpopulation in the system. and there is an agreement of the Federal Chamber of Cassation for this to be activated, the truth is that the Judiciary is making very slow progress in granting these domiciliary services ”.
CELS is one of the Human Rights organizations that, for decades, has been monitoring the prison system in the country. Tufró affirmed that the Judicial Power "is bureaucratizing the process, as if they were ordinary release procedures, when we are in an emergency situation due to the pandemic."
The specialist also criticized the "lack of coordination" between the Executive and the judges to order this process. "This situation generates a lack of information among the detainees, and that is fertile ground for these protests to begin," he added.
Spokespersons from the Ministry of Justice maintain that "a list of around 1,200 people, who are within the risk group for the new coronavirus and who are in a position to access home prison, was handed over to the Judiciary, but so far the judges have granted very little benefit. ”
From the country's highest criminal court, the Federal Court of Cassation, reported that they have issued an agreement, urging judges to grant house arrest to detainees who are part of the risk group, and to pregnant women and mothers of young children, always and when they are accused of minor and non-violent crimes. "It is up to each court to analyze case by case," added a spokesperson.
