When Jagath Karunaratne was first taken into custody at Fiji’s largest prison, he was held in a small, concrete cell. Normally, he says, prisoners are held here for a night while their more permanent dormitory accommodation is organised. But Karunaratne alleges he was was held there for a month.
In the cell block he says he had no bed, no bedding except a scratchy sheet, and was given a bucket to use for a toilet. He claims he was allowed to empty this once a day and every night was forced to sleep next to his own excrement.
“It was not a pleasant experience,” says Karunaratne, the president of the opposition Freedom Alliance Party (formerly Fiji United Freedom Party). “I was kept there with a bucket as the toilet with little bit of water in it and only 10 minutes in the morning to go and have a quick shower, and the whole day locked up. No exercise, no sunshine.”
Karunaratne was convicted of spray-painting anti-government graffiti and sentenced to more than two years in April 2018, alongside an opposition MP. He was released in August 2018, after the director of public prosecutions dropped its case.
Since gaining his freedom, Karunaratne who is still in politics, wants to highlight the plight of prisoners in Fiji, saying that the conditions in remand centres mean that people often come out far worse criminals than when they went in.
Karunaratne said he was told by the correction officers that he was kept in the cell for so long for his own safety because he was a political prisoner. Officers at the prison have told the Guardian that they were ordered by the commissioner of corrections, Francis Kean, to keep Karunaratne in these conditions because of his political affiliations.
“The command was given verbally by the commissioner, Commander Kean, to make [Karunaratne and the opposition MP] have a terrible stay,” said Hendrik De Wachter, a prison officer who is claiming asylum in Australia after his experiences working for Kean. Kean was contacted by the Guardian for comment.
Eventually, Karunaratne says he was transferred to a dormitory at Suva prison when his cell was flooded.
“The dorm that I was in it was for 22 people to sleep … at one time there were about 84 people in there. The people were literally sleeping everywhere … at the night time when we want to go and use the washroom we need to walk over them and, if I may say so, you might be standing on a person while you are urinating.”
He said that he was treated well by officers and was not subject to and did not witness any physical assaults from officers to inmates. However, while being held in isolation in the cell block, he alleges he witnessed inmates in a neighbouring cell being punished by prison officers who sprayed water onto them throughout the night to keep them awake.
He believes the prisoners are “frustrated, angry with the society, angry with the government.”
“One most likely scenario that is that they come out as a worse criminal because they are suffocated inside.”
source https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/16/people-come-out-worse-my-time-inside-fijis-broken-prison-system
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