A 22-year-old man ended his life on Tuesday in a cell in the disciplinary section of the Guyana penitentiary center, located in Rémire-Montjoly, we learned on Friday from a union source.
“
We confirm that a suicide took place in this establishment on Tuesday
,” also indicated a source familiar with the matter.
The victim is an Amerindian from the town of Camopi, in eastern Guyana, facing Brazil, who arrived at the penitentiary center in April 2022. He was due to leave next October, Michel Barbot told AFP on Friday, departmental secretary FO-Penitentiary.
A context of high tensions
The detainee had broken furniture in his cell the previous days and had ended up in the disciplinary section, where he hanged himself, according to the same source.
The management of the center did not wish to give any information, saying that the file is now in the hands of the prosecution.
The prosecutor was unreachable on Friday.
This suicide comes as strong tensions oppose the management of the penitentiary center and the agents.
Four unions, UTG-CGT, FO, Ufap and CFTC, met as an inter-union to demand the departure of the director in office since 2019. The agents are mobilizing in their free time, because they cannot do strike.
The trigger for this mobilization was the attack on a guard by an inmate on 6 January.
The attacker has since been transferred to a prison in the Paris suburbs, and the supervisor is being treated in mainland France.
Read alsoMarginalized, the CFTC believes in its future
The penitentiary center of Guyana had been pointed out by the summary judge of the administrative court almost four years ago, in February 2019, for unworthy conditions of detention.
The same court observed, in December 2022, that the measures intended to remedy this were slow to be applied.
In its decision, the court however partially rejected a request from the International Observatory of Prisons, requesting to "
order the Minister of Justice (and) the Minister of Health (...) to implement various measures in order to to put an end to the serious and manifestly illegal attacks on the fundamental freedoms of detainees
” in this establishment.
The OIP has taken its request to the Council of State, which will examine it on Monday.
