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BELGIUM: Council of Europe worried about Belgian prisons crisis

12 May 2016

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"The Council of Europe, the continent’s oldest organisation specialised in human rights, has visited prisons in Belgium where a large number of staff were absent due to strike and therefore did not provide services to inmates.

Belgium faces a growing crisis in its prisons, with the army called in to help and inmates stuck in their cells 24 hours a day as the government struggles to end a strike by prison staff.

The Council of Europe’s anti-torture committee, the CPT, has made an ad-hoc visit from 7 to 9 May to look at the situation in the prisons of Huy, Ittre and Jamioulx and the social defence establishment of Paifve.

At the end of the visit, the delegation presented its preliminary observations to Koen Geens, Minister of Justice, and senior officials of the Ministry of Justice, and held consultations on the measures taken by the Belgian authorities to establish a guaranteed minimum service, with a view to preventing inhuman and degrading treatment of inmates."

See the article: Council of Europe worried about Belgian prisons crisis (EurActiv, link)

And see: Council of Europe anti-torture Committee visits prisons affected by strikes in Belgium (European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, link)

Information on the CPT's 2013 visit to Belgium: Council of Europe anti-torture Committee publishes report on Belgium (link); full report (French only, pdf) and government response (pdf, also in French)

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