VR tour of notorious prison
Prison reform campaigners from Venezuela have come up with a clever way to portray the horror of the country’s most notorious prison, El Helicoide.
Human rights activist Víctor Navarro, who spent 129 days there, recruited tech experts to create a Virtual Reality tour so the world can see the appalling conditions. Navarro, now in exile in Argentina, briefed 3D graphic designers and interviewed former inmates to create the reality of El Helicoide, named after its innovative helix design and likened to a spacecraft.
The tour, watched through a headset, includes audio of a torture victim’s screams, and shows cells strewn with faeces and crawling with insects. Navarro, who narrates the commentary, said: “We expose what the Venezuelan government doesn’t want people to see. Their crimes.”
Cop told prisoner to “lick that piss up”
A US police officer has pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanour charge after he ordered a prisoner to lick up his own urine.
The US district court heard that patrol officer Michael Green (pictured) of Pearl police department, Mississippi, was among officers dispatched to a family disturbance where they arrested a man, identified as “BE”, last year.
After being placed in a holding cell without a toilet, BE told Green he needed to urinate but was ignored, so used a corner of the cell. Green, told what had happened, threatened to “beat his f****** ass” and ordered BE to “lick that piss up”. The prisoner obeyed, then vomited.
Green has lost his job and will be sentenced this month, when he faces up to a year in prison and a $10,000 (£7,900) fine.
You’re pregnant? 🙁
A woman held on remand in a US jail discovered at a health check that she was pregnant, and requested an abortion via the prison email system. All she received in reply was a sad face emoticon.
She was being held in Winnebago County Jail, Illinois, on drug charges that could lead to prison, and did not want to bring a child into the world whilst incarcerated. She already had four children, three born via caesarean sections, and knew it could be damaging, saying “My own life was at stake.”
Her case exposes a major issue on healthcare in American prisons, as the insurance system Medicaid, aimed at those with low incomes, does not cover abortions when inside. She would have had to meet the cost herself.
After a difficult pregnancy she gave birth to a healthy child and was allowed home for three months to nurse the newborn, then returned to prison to serve the balance of her sentence. Her mother looked after her family, so they did not need to be taken into care.
Wakey, wakey
A prisoner in Texas is suing authorities over a regime which sees him woken every morning at 2am – for breakfast. In the state’s prisons, lights go out at 10.30pm, but everyone is woken up at 1am for a roll call and again an hour later for the first meal of the day.
Michael Garrett claimed in his lawsuit that this schedule amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment” in breach of his rights under the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution, as it allows just-three-and-a-half hours of uninterrupted sleep each night.
The lawsuit is supported by Candice Alfano of the University of Houston, who stated: “Deprivation of sleep is considered a form of torture by the United Nations as it breaks down the body of the sufferer.” Mr Garrett has severe migraines, high blood pressure, and vertigo.
In the latest hearing, the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Mr Garrett had proved conclusively that shortage of sleep resulting from his prison conditions is harmful in general, sufficient to win his case.
Guards watched women undress
Two women who were watched by male guards while they undressed, washed, and used the toilet in their cells have had their human rights claim backed by the United Nations.
The pair were aged 29 and 33 when they were arrested at political demonstrations in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, in 2017. Each was sentenced to two weeks in custody. The all-male staff at their first detention centre watched them around the clock via in-cell video cameras and peepholes. At a second detention centre which they were moved to, one woman was ordered to undress and perform sit ups while she was on hunger strike.
The United Nations Women’s Rights Committee ruled that their rights had been breached, and called upon Belarus to provide them with reparations and medical support.
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