Brazil’s 213 social organizations denounced President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration before the United Nations (UN) and the Organization of American States (OAS) for not containing the advance of COVID-19 inside the country's prisons.
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This South American country could face a "worrying catastrophe". According to the National Council of Justice (CNJ), COVID-19 cases inside prisons have increased by 800 percent since the beginning of May.
"Even though we have not reached the contagion curve's peak, lack of data transparency and unreported cases are causing deaths. We are very concerned that the practice of mass disappearance begins within the prison system," organizations such as the Sao Paulo State's Public Defender and the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture noted.
The human rights defenders sent a document that synthesizes the violations of international norms and recommendations committed by the Brazilian government.
Among them are the lack of access to health, prisoners' isolation, concealment of the number of deaths, overcrowding, and the use of precarious temporary structures to house prisoners.
"By lacking a serious and responsible policy for the massive release of prisoners, the Brazilian State deepens its colonial and genocidal policy, exposing almost 1 million people to irreparable harm to their physical health and their life," the human rights defenders added.
"This scenario deepens the practice of torture, degrading and cruel treatment as well as the agonizing feeling of waiting for death among prisoners and their families," they stressed.
The complainant organizations also indicated that the Brazilian prison authorities have recognized that the COVID-19 mortality rate is five times higher inside prisons than in the rest of this country, which has 1,117,430 reported cases and 51,502 deaths so far.
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