Prison revolt amid allegations of ill-treatment in Quatre Camins
01 May 2004
A revolt by 77 prison inmates in Quatre Camins prison in La Roca del Vallés (Barcelona) saw the prison’s sub-director Manuel Tallón attacked and seriously wounded with a pointed metal object, and another prison officer was also beaten. The prisoners claimed that the revolt was the result of ill-treatment to which inmates are allegedly subjected, and Tallón has been the object of several complaints on this subject, although he has always been cleared. The prison authorities claimed that this was not the case, and that the revolt was related to the sub-director’s tough stance against drug dealing in the prison.
On 5 July 2004, the Justice department of Catalunya’s Generalitat (the Catalan regional government) admitted that 28 prisoners who were transferred following the revolt may have suffered ill-treatment. A total of 56 inmates were tranferred after the uprising, 40 of whom had reportedly taken part in the revolt. Allegations by prisoners talk of beatings that took place over several days, in some cases while they were handcuffed or held in isolation cells, of being thrown down stairs, and of beatings on arrival in the jails to which they were transferred – Brians and Modelo prisons in Barcelona, and Ponent prison in Lleida. Medical reports concerning twenty-eight of the transferred prisoners confirm the reports of beatings in a case that the Catalan Justice councillor, Josep María Vallés, described as “isolated incidents” caused by individuals, which should not tarnish the image of Catalunya’s 3,000 prison officers. Vallés identified five of the officials responsible for the prisoner transfers, although it was impossible to identify the officers who took part , because of the loss of control that resulted from the arrival of off-duty prison officers and of prison officers proceeding from different jails. Details of the information have been submitted to prosecuting magistrates for criminal investigations to be carried out.
A report by the Observatori del Sistema Penal i els Drets Humans (OSPDH, Observatory on the Penal System and Human Rights) in Barcelona University, published in October 2003, in the framework of the development of a European observatory on the penal and prison systems, documented cases of ill-treatment suffered by prisoners in the Catalan prison system. The report, entitled “Análisis de las condiciones de vida en los centros penitenciarios de Catalunya” (Analysis of living conditions in penitentiary establishments in Catalunya) is aimed at beginning the elaboration of “successive reports on the conditions of imprisonment in Catalunya, placing an emphasis on those issues or situations that may result particularly problematic” and focusing especially on questions that “generate situations of defencelessness for imprisoned persons or that contravene their rights”. The report highlights problems such as overcrowding, a lack of professional staff, degrading living conditions and a deterioration in prisoners’ health conditions, as well as highlighting the far-right ideology of several members of the CATAC trade union, which has the highest representation among Catalan prison personnel.
On 9 June 2004, the OSPDH issued an urgent statement after talking to several of the transferred prisoners, in which it condemns the aggression against the deputy director and other officials in Quatre Camins prison; it describes the allegations of ill-treatment during transfers made by prisoners as “extraordinarily serious”, which “cannot be tolerated and must be immediately investigated”; it welcomes the Catalan justice department’s prison service attitude, described as a “clear change” from the previous regime, for allowing the OSPDH to interview inmates, offering its cooperation and submitting the information provided by the OSPDH to public prosecutors; it highlights that the criticism is not aimed at creating a “generalised suspicion” involving all prison service personnel, highlighting that it is in their int