NEWS FROM
BRAZIL
supplied by Brazil Justice Net
Number 611, June 9, 2009
In this week's News from Brazil:
State’s
Omission Aggravates Violence in Espirito Santo Prison
By Patricia Benvenuti
On May 25th, the Justice Department of the state of Espirito Santo
ordered the Viana (Cascuvi) House of Custody, located in the
metropolitan region of Vitoria, to be closed. No other
prisoner may enter, and the nearly 1,200 current prisoners will need to
be transferred to other units.
The closing of the jail, which has a 390-person capacity, was the
result of inspections done in the last few weeks by members of the
National Council of Justice (CNJ). In their visit of Cascuvi,
the judges noted that the buildings are decrepit and insecure, and that
there are violations of human rights.
According to denouncements received by the National Council of Criminal
Policy for Penitentiaries (CNPCP), the prisoners are constantly
submitted to torture. There have even been cases of body
dismemberment.
The CNJ’s inspections revealed that the chaotic situation of
Cascuvi involves not just this unit. In the Department of
Police Justice (DPJ) of Vila Velha, for example, 281 people share a
cell with a capacity of 36 persons, while in the Novo Horizonte Prison,
in the municipality of Serra in greater Vitoria, the prisoners are held
in provisional “containers” which are used as cells.
Because of these situations, the CNPCP has solicited federal
intervention. Meanwhile, these denouncements come as no
surprise to Fr. Gunther Alois Zgubic, the national coordinator of the
church’s Prison Ministry. In Zgubic’s
view, the violence enacted on the prisoners is aggravated by the
complicity of the authorities, who upon becoming aware of the violence,
take no action. “It is absolutely absurd.
It is a concentration camp. You see photos of bodies in
situations worse than a meat factory, horrible things, and the
government looks and does absolutely nothing,” said Zgubic.
In the following interview, the priest talks about the disrespect given
to the prisoners, the state’s neglect in relation to the
violence, and the difficulties in denouncing the horrible conditions of
the prisons.
Brasil de Fato (BF): What is the situation of the prison
system of Espirito Santo?
Fr. Gunther Alois Zgubic: The prison system in Espirito Santo
has already been denounced by human rights organizations, but finally
has come to the public’s attention. What is really
happening in Espirto Santo? Espirito Santo is traditionally
the most violent and corrupt state in the country. Its public
institutions in the area of security, through pressure from society and
maybe through federal intervention, are only now beginning to advance,
and it is becoming a more democratic state and respecting the basic
rights of their citizens.
BF: What are the conditions of the prison units and the
prisoners?
In the Cascuvi unit with more than a 1,000 prisoners--totally
overcrowded conditions--the government refused to remodel the prison
after a riot which destroyed much of the unit, including doors being
yanked off. The government said, “Since you destroy
buildings, we are not going to invest in you.” The
government does not even know how many prisoners there are in the unit,
and how many have been killed. By law, there should be a
daily count of prisoners, especially for prisoners who come from
violent backgrounds, so that the prisoners do not end up killing each
other.
Last year, for example, on an average of every two months, they found
body parts. This just happened again a few days
ago. Already eleven prisoners have been killed. But
nobody really knows how many other prisoners have been killed because
the state denies entrance into these units. The prisoners are
alone, the government delivers the food to the gate, but no one goes
in. Who rules inside really are not the prison guards but the
military police. When prisoners are called up for trial, they
are chained, go practically kneeling with the police pointing guns at
their heads.
It is truly absurd, a concentration camp. You see photos of bodies in
situations worse than a meat factory, horrible things, and the
government looks and does absolutely nothing. Or what they
say is “we are building new prisons,” but do so
very slowly, even though they admit the government has not cut funding,
contrary to other policies. It is a case of utter
chaos. There are decades of social debt. So the
government should invest, and remove people, and put guards inside so
that the few that are in organized crime, terrorizing the other 1000
prisoners, may no longer have power.
BF: In your evaluation, is this a case of neglect on the part
of the state?
It is a case of total neglect not only in regard to this
prison. We also have the cases of the infamous
“container” prisons, two stories high and no
running water and other deplorable conditions. The state is
showing that it is building, but for years the problems have not been
resolved. And there are other cases. Not long ago,
there was a case we denounced involving a member of the military
police, who was a torturer, a drunk and a drug addict. He
organized drug trade, and illegally maintained adolescents in the old
prison of Colatina. He beat the kids. And nobody
did anything. The employees of the Secretary of Justice say
to me, “Padre, we can’t do our job because the
military police have illegally imposed their rule.”
A state which is not capable of providing minimal conditions, in this
case the prison system, needs intervention and monitoring from national
and even international authorities.
So we are happy that the CNPCP has highlighted the denouncements and
the documentation, which includes photos, that show the challenges and
will take the issue up with General Procurator of the
Republic. We from the Prison Ministry are also going to do a
national campaign from our bases so that this will become a federal
case.
BF: Why did it take authorities so long to make a decision
regarding the prison system in Espirito Santo? Do you believe
that the situation wasn’t getting the attention it deserved?
On the part of the media, yes. There are many states where
the media is simply a slave to the elite. So to denounce
something in Espirito Santo is nearly impossible. In order
for this case, this scandal, to become known in Espirito Santo and
nationally, we need the press from Sao Paulo, or Rio de Janeiro, or
Brasilia. So you see what we have is a
pseudo-democracy. Clearly, it is not morals that will resolve
certain policies. What this case needs is intervention and
help in establishing a basic or minimal quality of life that a states
needs to be considered democratic and just. We have another
case where a judge hired someone to kill another judge who refused to
be a part of the drug trafficking and the organized corruption of the
penal system. So what happened? The judge was
caught and given an alternative sentence. A judge who through
organized crime kills a fellow judge, who was someone who could have
helped us who want an ethical legal system.... This shows
that the Espirto Santo legal system and other institutions do not have
power. If organized crime rules it is because humans rights
are not even minimally respected.
Source: Brasil de Fato, May 28, 2009
The
reproduction of this
material is permitted as long as the source is cited. If you wish to
contact us, send a message to bjn@braziljusticenet.org.
