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"Torture" alleged at Brandenburg prison

01 May 2004

The public prosecution has initiated an investigation into allegations of intimidation and violence by guards in the Brandenburg/Havel prison (Justizvollzugsanstalt - JVA) near Berlin. This action was prompted by a report on the regional television programme Klartext, in which ex-prisoners alleged systematic abuse by guards wearing masks. It was claimed that "the disciplining of so-called troublemakers by “black” gangs is normality in the JVA". Guards are said to have stormed into cells and beaten up prisoners with sticks, breaking bones and inflicting other serious injuries. In one instance a prisoner who complained about heart troubles was beaten and denied medical help all night. Conservative regional interior minister Barbara Richtstein (Christlich Demokratische Union) has come under criticism over the allegations. This has led her to suspended the prison chief and five officers who denied medical help to the prisoner with the heart condition. Nine more officers are facing disciplinary proceedings.

The investigations have not concluded, but have established that masks had been used in the prison. Guards claim they use them for their protection. Politicians and prosecution have stressed that JVA Brandenburg/Havel should not be condemned as a "torture prison", thereby promoting the "rotten apples" theory. Richtstein has, however, re-opened 80 complaints that inmates have filed against prison guards in the last five years (they had been abandoned by the same prosecution authorities that will now reassess all complaint cases since 1994). Germany has no independent prison or police complaint's commission, a fact that has repeatedly been criticised by Amnesty International, which argues that the state is doing nothing to monitor and seriously prosecute police brutality and abuses (see Statewatch vol 14 no 1).

Süddeutsche Zeitung 4.6.04; Jungle World 12.5.04