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| Rights of Prisoners and Violation
of these Rights |
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In principle, this cell is for teaching prisoners the regulations that they have to obey. (It is called Poun-san Khan which in Burmese means 'model cell,' literally translated.) These cells are included in every prison in Burma. All prisoners are very afraid of this cell, even when they have only heard mention of it. There are two forms of model cells in prisons: (1) For detainees who are under
trial; and Everyone who has been sentenced to imprisonment has passed through both these cells. They teach prisoners the regulations of the prison and the four different standard positions for prisoners. These four standard positions are:
Even though these 'model cells' are only for the purpose of teaching the standard positions for prisoners, they are in reality the site of some of the worst abuses of prisoners. In the big hall, the Akhan Lu Gyi and their associates order the prisoners to sit in standard position number one, and to loudly recite the prison regulations. Meanwhile, the chief of this model cell and his subordinates swear at and physically intimidate prisoners by walking around them and brandishing sticks (solid and hard bamboo), crops made from three pieces of intertwined cane, and leather belts. If the voices of the prisoners reciting the prison regulations are not in harmony, these Akhan Lu Gyi and other criminal prisoners go among the prisoners and start beating and kicking them. Even if the recitation is in harmony, they will usually use some excuse to beat the prisoners. If one prisoner is out of step, all the other prisoners are also beaten at the same time. Sometimes 14-15 men go among the prisoners and beat and kick them, cursing the whole time. They order the prisoners to sit in the standard position for many hours. Because of this, the prisoners sweat heavily and eventually get very sore, stiff backs. As they have to hold their heads down for many hours, prisoners suffer dizziness, and some become unconscious. But none dare to move while in the standard position as they are all scared of being beaten and kicked. The Akhan Lu Gyi and his followers say that even if a snake passes in front of them, the prisoners have to always remain without moving; even if the snake bites them they have to die without moving. Because of this kind of treatment, all the prisoners are afraid of these cells. The successive military governments keep these cells with two main aims: (I) To
break down morale (II) To
extort money from the prisoners After reaching such an agreement, the detainee has to ask money from his family members on the day of his trial, and try to arrange for the money to be smuggled into the prison. In this way, the daily income of the Akhan Lu Gyi is about 10,000-20,000 kyats, which is twice the annual income of doctors and engineers. This money is shared with the higher prison officials. Consequently, all of the prison officials become richer. Because of this, prison authorities turn a blind eye to the abuses which take place in these cells. In effect, they seem to be encouraging it to continue. Even if there are cases of prisoners being over-tortured, the prison authorities try to cover it up to protect the Akhan Lu Gyi. If there is no alternative, they blame the Akhan Lu Gyi, saying that he was responsible for the case. On such occasions, the senior prisoner of the cell always takes full responsibility for the problem, but he will usually just be moved to another hall. (In principle, according to the jail manual, no prisoner has the right to beat another prisoner for any reason.) 2.2 Health
Situation However, the hospital provides no medicine except some kinds of temporary analgesic and antipyretic, such as Paracetamol. There is only one doctor at the prison hospital. The doctor neither examines patients nor prescribes medicine for them; these tasks are carried out by other prisoners, who have only an extremely rudimentary knowledge of medical matters (taught to them by the prison doctor). The prison hospital is always dirty and the sanitation is very poor. All medicines from the prison hospital are smuggled out of the prison and sold in the markets outside. Thus, only very cheap medicines (such as Paracetamol, Buspro, etc.) are left in the prison hospital and there is always a lack of necessary medicines. All the prisoners are really scared of becoming sick as there are no proper medicines, no appropriate treatment and no care. Some rich prisoners get the medicines they require from relatives or other visitors. The hospital confiscates almost all these medicines, leaving very little for the patient. Confiscated medicine is then sold at the market. If a complaint is lodged with the prison authorities, it is more usual for them to issue an order banning the bringing of all medicines to the prison rather than to stop the confiscation. As prisoners fear that this kind of order will affect all the other prisoners, no one lodges a complaint about it. Furthermore, the hospital does not admit patients unless they give a bribe to the prison doctors; otherwise they are admitted to the hospital only when they develop serious complications, but by this time it is usually too late and most die. On the other hand, if the bribe is paid, they will be immediately admitted to the hospital and treated well. This is just another way of extorting money from the prisoners, as the doctor only takes care of patients who can pay money. Therefore, prisoners who are unable to pay money are very afraid of being admitted to the hospital, because they know that they will probably die there. The hospital has some beds but they are always occupied by 'pretend patients' who pay money to the prison doctor so that they can sleep in the hospital beds. These pretend patients are also allowed to stay in the better and cleaner cells of the prison hospital. Real patients who cannot pay the bribe do not have access to the hospital beds or good cells but rather have to stay in the corridor or in the toilet and store areas which are very unhygienic and smell offensively. The prison hospital provides no sheets and no blankets for patients. If a prisoner has their own blanket they can use it, but otherwise none is provided. There are no appropriate medicines provided; no regular checks by doctors; no proper diagnosis; no proper treatment; no assistance or care of any kind for the patients. Therefore, most of the patients who are admitted to the prison hospital die there. Even if they survive, all end up suffering from malnutrition and become very thin. This neglect in prisons has contributed to the high death tolls of prisoners. When a prisoner dies of medical mistreatment or neglect, no action will be taken against the doctor, and no relatives of the victim will bring charges against him as the prison authorities will not allow this to happen. This has been an unspoken norm in prisons. Prisoners themselves consider this yet another abuse of human rights. The prison hospital takes very good care of those who bribe them dearly. The hospital buys medicines from outside if required for the prisoners. If need be, they are often transferred to a good hospital outside. There is a special meal for patients known as hospital food different from the ordinary food for prisoners. It consists of a cup soup with a cup of meat curry twice a day, for lunch and dinner, of cow's milk and an egg for breakfast. However, this ration exists only on paper, and in practice patients never receive it. The hospital food rations are only enjoyed by the pretend patients who have given money to the prison doctor. These pretend patients need to pay 3000-5000 Kyats to the prison doctor (compare this to the normal official salary of at a government hospital, which is 1250-1500 Kyat per month). Nobody dares to protest against this corruption in the prison. If they do protest, they will be charged with opposition to the prison authorities. The most common diseases among the prisoners are: gastrointestinal diseases (amoebic dysentery, bacillary dysentery and diarrhoea), jaundice (viral and amoebic hepatitis) and skin diseases. The sources of transmission of the infection are poor sanitation, a lack of personal hygiene (particularly because of poor water supplies), unclean and semi-cooked food, dirty kitchens and polluted surroundings. Owing to drug abuse, there is also a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in prisons. Prisoners are always afraid to get injections in the jail hospital because of AIDS. When administering injections, the doctors give only half or less than half of the phial to one patient, giving the rest to another patient from the same needle and syringe, this almost guaranteeing that any blood-carried infections will spread. This means that the doctors can get away with using less medicine per patient. The situation for political prisoners is worse. Political prisoners never give bribes to the prison authorities. They all reject this practice, in order not to tarnish their political dignity. Besides, there is a directive government to prisons to treat the prisoners as unjustly and brutally as possible. So the prison hospital authorities ignore the health condition of the political prisoners. The health care system for political prisoners is really very poor and they are always neglected. Because of late admission to hospital, mistreatment, a lack of medicines and no care for patients, the following prisoners died in the prison hospital. The majority of deaths were due to dysentery. All of them were prominent political prisoners from Insein prison.
This is only a selected number of well-known prisoners; there are many other ordinary prisoners who have also died in prisons without any notice being taken. If any of these victims had a chance to receive treatment outside the prison, they would have survived. These horrific incidents take place in Burmese prisons because of corruption, abuse of authority and disrespect for prisoners as fellow human beings by the prison officials. 2.3 Food
for Prisoners The rice given to prisoners is the lowest quality available in Burma. The pea curry consists of a few yellow peas boiled in a large volume of water. Almost all the peas from the curry have already been removed by the prisoners in charge by the time meal time arrives. This leaves only pea-water for the other prisoners. Talapaw curry (vegetable soup): a small amount of various vegetables are put into a large urn, and then boiled with too much water. The soup always contains foreign matter such as small insects, leeches, sand and some very tiny pieces of stone. Fish paste: a little fish paste mixed with salt, sand and tiny pieces of stone. A prisoner gets only one teaspoon of fish paste for one meal. Meat: beef, pork or fish. Every prisoner gets a small piece of meat (about a one-inch cube) once a week. This is half the amount stipulated in the prison manual. Good parts of the meat are usually kept by the prison authorities and then sold to prisoners. For example, when given fried fish, prisoners are provided only with the heads and tails. Prison officers never use all the allowance money when they buy meat and fish, but keep some for themselves. Of course, if a prisoner has some hidden money, he can buy pea soup and meat or exchange it for his clothes. Because of all this corruption, the food quota of the prisoners is decreased by half. In this way, the majority of prisoners are underfed and have to go hungry all the time. 2.4 Bathing
The size of the water-trough is about 80 ft x 20 ft and it is divided into two parts. The small part is about 20 ft long and contains drinking water. However, the prisoners appointed to the authoritarian body can use as much of this water as they like for bathing. Ordinary prisoners are allowed to bathe at the large section of another trough. At bathing time, prisoners line up on each side of the trough and fetch water for bathing. The order in which prisoners must line up is decided by the authoritarian prisoners. If the prisoners do not wash in time with one another, the prisoners in charge beat them with hard bamboo sticks [the prisoners must wash like a military parade; they are given an order to scoop out water, and must all do so in unison]. The prisoners are allowed to use only shallow dinner plates to scoop water for bathing. They can use no more than ten plates of water each. Sometimes, if the prisoners in charge are displeased, they allow prisoners only eight dishes of water. At other times, prisoners are allowed fifteen dishes of water, but this is rare. Prisoners who bribe those in charge with money or clothes are allowed to bathe for as long as they like. Because of the small amount of water provided, most prisoners suffer scabies and other skin diseases associated with poor sanitation. 2.6 Prisoner
Complaint Session However, if prisoners verbally report their grievances to the chief warden of the jail, later they will be punished for some reason or other contrived by the prison authorities. Before the chief warden makes his rounds, jail officers ask the prisoners what complaints they have. Prisoners raise some complaints, but if the jail officers have decided against some complaint being made to the chief warden, the prisoners may not make it. They have no way to complain. They do not dare to take the risk of making a complaint against the wishes of the jail warden. If someone bravely complains to the chief warden, ignoring jail officers, he will have action taken against him (though ostensibly for another unrelated reason) and will be beaten by the jail officers later. No prisoners dare to complain about the atrocities, harassment and unjust treatment they receive. The prison officers in any case deny the existence of the problems about which the prisoners may complain. But the prisoners can request some minor rights. The following is an example of a conversation with the chief warden: Jail officer: Do you have something
to complain to the chief about? This is the extent of the question and answer sessions during the rounds of the chief warden. All the prisoners always feel very dejected during the chief warden's rounds; they have to wait for him for nearly two hours, in the standard position, sitting or standing silently on a hard concrete floor.
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