"Don't free them!" " In Argentina, numerous messages are multiplying on social networks against the release of prisoners from prison during the coronavirus period. Publications tend to be aggressive – "Let them rot in prison" – and are sometimes accompanied by photos of victims of violent crimes committed in recent years.
While many countries around the world have set up their prisons and removed prisoners to limit the risk of contagion, in Argentina, the release of prisoners has created controversy. Thousands of people across the country looked at their windows on Thursday April 30 for a cacerolazo (a concert of saucepans, a common form of event in Latin America) "Against the mass release of detainees".
"Argentine prisons are unable to cope with the epidemic, explains Alcira Daroqui, sociologist and director of the Study Group on the Penal System and Human Rights at the University of Buenos Aires, however. There are rats, regular floods, there are almost never medical visits … " Prisons are also overcrowded: the province of Buenos Aires has nearly 50,000 prisoners for half the available places. The country's total prison population is estimated at 100,000 – it is difficult to get an exact count because some detentions are carried out in police stations due to overcrowding in prisons.
Hunger-strike
In recent weeks, riots have broken out in several penitentiaries, detainees demanding early exits and more preventive measures against the coronavirus, which killed 246 people in Argentina on May 3. At the end of April, clashes between prisoners and guards in Florencio Varela, a suburb of Buenos Aires, resulted in the death of a 23-year-old detainee, shot dead. Three guards were arrested for murder and concealing evidence. In Santa Fe, central province, hundreds of prisoners went on hunger strike on April 27. In the center of Devoto (Buenos Aires), "One of the worst prisons in the country, very old and whose closure is regularly considered"According to Paula Litvachky, lawyer and director general of the Center for Legal and Social Studies, a human rights NGO, negotiations are in progress between detainees and the authorities following riots. Two cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in this prison where 1,700 people live crammed.
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