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V. Prison Conditions

Research conducted by Human Rights Watch into conditions within Guinean prisons where pre-trial detainees and others are held revealed gross inadequacies with respect to overcrowding, food and nutrition, and the level of training received by most prison guards. While Human Rights Watch’s visit was limited to Guinea’s biggest prison, the Maison Centrale in Conakry, conditions and problems are similar countrywide.⁴¹

Overcrowding

Severe overcrowding is acknowledged as the most basic, and most chronic, problem plaguing the Maison Centrale.⁴² The Maison Centrale was originally designed to hold 240-300 prisoners.⁴³ The Current population hovers around 1,000, but has been as high as 1,500 in recent years.⁴⁴ In other words, for every space that exists in the Maison Centrale, there are 3.3-5 individuals to lay claim to it. As a result, most prisoners and detainees spend 24 hours a day in cramped, dimly lit cells, where there is space to sleep, but little more.⁴⁵ As noted above, an important contributor to overcrowding in Guinea’s prisons is the confinement of detainees awaiting trial.⁴⁶

Prisoners in the Maison Centrale look out of an overcrowded, dimly-lit cell. © 2005 Kim Osborn

Lack of Food and Nutrition

The UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners provide specifically that all prisoners “shall be provided with food of nutritional value adequate for health and strength, of wholesome quality and well prepared and served.” Nearly all prisoners and detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch indicated that they do not have adequate food. Adult males at the Maison Centrale are generally fed a couple of handfuls of plain rice once per day with a tablespoon of palm oil or watery sauce on top.⁴⁷

In 2004, roughly seven individuals died per month due to malnutrition and disease at the Maison Centrale.⁴⁸ Although Human Rights Watch was told by the director of the Maison Centrale that this figure has since decreased, it is difficult to identify the current number of deaths due to malnutrition and disease at the Maison Centrale in part because the prison director has a policy of releasing individuals who are about to die for one reason or another, so that they do not die in custody.⁴⁹ Deaths due to malnutrition undoubtedly continue, however: a local prisoners’ advocacy organization told Human Rights Watch that in Coyah, a small town about an hour’s drive outside of Conakry, two individuals died from complications due to malnutrition soon after their release in May 2006.⁵⁰

The national director of penal administration told Human Rights Watch that he estimates 10 - 15 percent of prisoners and detainees in the Maison Centrale suffer from malnutrition.⁵¹ However, a prisoners’ advocacy organization interviewed by Human Rights Watch suggested that this figure could be much higher.⁵² The national director of penal administration told Human Rights Watch that to alleviate the problem, he would like to create revenue-generating work for the prisoners and detainees so that the prison can obtain enough money to provide adequate food.⁵³

Due to the inadequacy of prison food, prisoners and detainees often rely on families to supplement their rations, though guards require families to pay 3,000 GNF (about U.S. $0.60) to deliver a meal, and some individuals report that the guards pick through the meals to eat any meat before delivering them.⁵⁴ During its visit, Human Rights Watch witnessed one family pleading with a guard to deliver food because they claimed they did not have the amount requested by the guard.

Volunteer Prison Guards

Prisons in Guinea, including the Maison Centrale, are staffed largely by “volunteer” guards, who have no training and are not paid by the state for their services but who are fed by the government using the same budget that is designated to provide food for prisoners and detainees.⁵⁵ Guards are generally “paid” by selling goods to prisoners and detainees, such as marijuana and cigarettes, in exchange for money, clothing, and other items of value.⁵⁶ Guards also make money through extortion. For example, although boys are generally separated from adult males in the Maison Centrale, some guards use placement with adults as a means of extortion—they may put a child who has been given money by a parent in with adults until the boy agrees to give the guard some of the money.⁵⁷ Such practices violate Article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which provides that “[j]uvenile offenders shall be segregated from adults.”⁵⁸

One official from the Ministry of Justice interviewed by Human Rights Watch lamented the lack of salary and training, citing them as one reason that some prison guards engage in what he called the “perverse side of things.”⁵⁹ Human Rights Watch was told by officials from the Ministry of Justice that the government hopes that guards will be given a salary and training in the near future.⁶⁰ Human Rights Watch did not gather any evidence of physical brutality on the part of prison guards.⁶¹