Crying and pleading for outside intervention yesterday after they were forcibly dragged from their barricaded cells at the Women's Prison at Golden Grove, close to 30 prisoners were hog-tied using tie-straps and made to lie on the cold hard floor.
The punishment came as a form of retaliation following the prisoners’ protest which began on Sunday in which many of them barricaded themselves in their cells using ropes fashioned out of bed linen and clothes.
The confirmation about yesterday's developments came from a young female prisoner awaiting a trial date for murder.
Begging for the Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi or the Inspector of Prisons Daniel Khan to intervene on their behalf, the woman freely admitted that she was aware it was illegal to have a cellphone in her possession while in custody.
However, she said it became a necessary tool in order to inform the public about their plight.
Claiming that she along with her cellmates and others who had engaged in the protest had been made to suffer the consequences of their actions, the woman spoke in hushed tones as she recounted what transpired yesterday.
Contacted around 10 am, the woman said: “Our problems centre around the conditions which we have to live in. Right now, we are being handcuffed and dragged to the scanner at the front of the prison compound as the officers have accused us of having cellphones. They are also not feeding us. We have to defecate in a bucket which is filthy and sometimes broken or cracked. We get one roll of toilet paper every two weeks.”
Interrupting the conversation as officers patrolled, the woman continued: “We are upstairs with our gates locked and we are afraid to open them because of the consequences of our protest. We are on a restricted diet so many of us are getting sick and have to get treatment but nobody is taking us on.
“Please get somebody to help us,” she cried.
Indicating around noon that male and female prison officers had entered the section where she was housed and had begun video-taping the prisoners who were barricaded inside their cells, the woman later called and confirmed the protesting prisoners had been taken to the condemned section where their mattresses were taken away and food and water withheld.
Claiming that some of the prisoners had been waiting for as long six years in order to get court and trial dates, the young woman said: “It is unfair to us. Some of these officers taking out their frustration on us. They does victimise us, making us squat and passing scanners between our legs, handcuffing us and dragging and stamping on us like dogs.
“If we retaliate, we are beaten and they sometimes bring male officers to beat us with batons. The restricted diet is days old bread and water, and porridge which is oats boiled in water with salt in it, sugar is substituted with no sugar or milk and two potatoes which not even half-cooked,” she added.
Revealing that a lot of prisoners had complained of feeling unwell and had reported experiencing chest pains, the woman said she had been diagnosed with acid reflux after her stomach was damaged due to the diet.
She added: “We have locked ourselves inside,”
The woman said a gate fell on an inmate yesterday but it was unclear if she had been taken for medical attention.
“We are in a prison inside a prison. We don’t normally get on like this but this is an indication of how frightening things have become,” she said.
“We are remanded. We cannot be punished in the prison before we go to court to hear what judgment will be handed down, that is unfair. We are already living with rats, cockroaches and mosquitoes. So many prisoners being affected by fever and skin rashes but we are not being taken to hospital. They just giving us Panadol, but right now the jail doesn't even have food to feed us.”
Efforts to contact Khan proved futile, while Prisons Commissioner Sterling Stewart was said to be unavailable.
However, senior prison officials confirmed that a group of prisoners considered to be “disruptive” had been removed from their cells and placed in a “high security area where all items which could be used to harm themselves or others were removed.”
The official declined to say if this included the mattresses or if the prisoners had actually been taken to the condemned section.
He claimed, however, that prison authorities did not have permission to place prisoners in that area unless there was a relevant court order stipulating such.
Adding that the prisoners became agitated on Sunday after officers began carrying out searches in an attempt to remove contraband items including cellphones, the official accused the prisoners of using soap to clog the keyholes and thereby preventing officers from accessing the cells.
He later admitted that prison authorities did what they had to do yesterday to force the protesting prisoners to surrender.
He denied that prisoners had been placed on a restricted diet as he said a doctor had to first be summoned to declare that an individual could undergo such dietary changes, following which a tribunal consisting of senior prison officials had to be convened.
The prisoners are hoping to get the attention of Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi who has been doing a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system since he assumed office for debate over the controversial Bail Amendment Act.