Convicted People Complain about Poor Conditions in Penitentiary Establishment

Tamta Tvalavadze

Last month, Human Rights Center received a collective letter of the inmates of Penitentiary Establishment # 8. Three prisoners describe horrible conditions in the facility and complain about their breached rights. The convicted people wrote in the letter that they do not walk in the yard, do not have long-term rendezvous, post-surgery medical treatment, and cannot take bath and other hygiene procedures.

Besides these, they complain about violence and other illegalities committed by prison administration. Prisoners wrote that prison administration is threatening them with upcoming presidential elections and promise them to add imprisonment years if they dare to protest current poor conditions in the prison. 

Human Rights Center’s lawyer Mari Tsutskiridze sent letter to the administration of the Prison # 7 to check the information provided in the prisoners’ letter.

In the reply letter, deputy director of the Prison # 7 D. Latsabidze wrote: “Current administration has not oppressed, abused and inhumanly treated inmates; if it had happened, we would have received adequate reaction on it and competent bodies would have informed about it.”  As for the hygiene norms in the establishment, the administration wrote:

“As for the prisoners’ complaint about lack of possibility to walk in the fresh air, or take bath and have rendezvous, it is not reality and  administration ensures realization of all rights of prison inmates as allowed by material-technical base of the facility,.”

Human Right Center addressed to the Penitentiary Department of the Ministry of Corrections and Legal Aid with regard to the collective letter of prisoners. The response letter of the penitentiary department reads that the information was already forwarded to the monitoring unit for further inspection.