Over one hundred inmates from the high-security male and female Tamigi and Senna wards of the Santa Maria Capua Vetere prison barricaded themselves in the area reserved for walking, to protest against the decision of the Dap to suspend online conversations with family members and dynamic surveillance.
The male and female prisoners - the latter had already protested yesterday - were supposed to return to their cells around 15 pm but refused, starting to bang objects against the wall; with pieces of paper they then set fire to the grass around the small church located in the area. The protest of the prisoners, including those convicted of crimes related to the Camorra, is above all for dynamic surveillance (open cells in the morning), the suspension of which by the Dap is not well received by the prisoners in the high security ward, who have benefited from it in these months of the Coronavirus emergency, while they usually are not entitled to it. Another reason is the suspension of video calls, which had already sparked protests yesterday by the women in the Senna ward.
“The ongoing protest,” says the general secretary of the SPP Aldo Di Giacomo, “proves once again that in prisons, the inmates are in charge.” And for now, the Penitentiary Police are not intervening. “The Penitentiary Police personnel,” says Emilio Fattorello, national secretary for Campania of the Autonomous Penitentiary Police Union SAPPE, “await clear orders and rules of engagement from the Authorities in charge of managing this critical event, with a release from any liability to avoid problems like in the past. SAPPE has been, is and will be alongside its colleagues in uniform and against the sensationalism and speeches of the various guarantors who fan the flames.”
Article published on 2 July 2020 - 17:57
