Mozambique: Human Rights Commission demands accountability for students’ arrest
DW / Prisoners of the Cabeço do Velho Jail in Manica, central Mozambique
Nampula province’s jails are overcrowded to the extent of violating human rights, says the Mozambican Human Rights League (LMDH). And sometimes prisoners lack services.
But despite the overcrowding, new prisoners keep arriving. And so it is all over the country.
Tarcisio Abibo, a delegate of the Mozambican Human Rights League in the northern region, is concerned about the situation: “We can see overcrowding from Nampula city first station, where all prisoners from all the city’s stations end up being taken.”
Last week, at least 16 inmates escaped from Nacala-Porto district jail. So far, only seven have been recaptured. The reasons for the escape were overcrowding and lack of prison guards.
Police only concerned with arresting people
Zacarias Nacute, spokesman for the Mozambican police in Nampula, says that in cases such as this prison escape, the role of the security forces is to “apply and enforce the law, neutralize the detainees and send them to the competent bodies”.
But the problem of prison overcrowding remains unresolved, the League says. The League often goes to jails to check whether inmates receive three meals a day, health care and legal aid. And often, there are violations of human rights.
“We find situations and immediately draw up a report communicating what we have noticed to the relevant parties,” the League’s Tarcisio Abibo says. He gives an example: “Once, a prisoner’s sentence was fulfilled, and he should have been released immediately. But he wasn’t; he remained in prison for two or three months. This is a human rights violation.”
At first, the Mozambican authorities used to contest the Human Rights League’s work, but with the constant denunciations, there have been improvements, the organization’s head says.
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