The Portuguese Association for Prisoner Support (APAR) defends the end of restrictions on visits to prisoners imposed by covid-19, demanding the immediate return of the two weekly visits lasting one hour each.
In a statement, APAR stresses that since March 2020 inmates of Portuguese jails have only had a half-hour weekly visit, indicating that, in addition to the short duration, these are still limited by acrylic barriers, which prevent family members from touch and make conversations difficult.
«This is when, abroad (and the prisoners know this), floods are allowed in football stadiums and nightclubs and public transport burst at the seams with passengers”, emphasizes the statement.
In this context, APAR requires the immediate return to two weekly visits, of one hour each, one of which is carried out on the weekend, as provided for by law, and also the immediate removal of acrylics in all chains.
The statement says that the General Directorate of Reinsertion and Prison Services (DGRSP) ordered the removal of acrylics on 15 September in prisons with less than 100 prisoners having decided «now that the same happens in prisons with a maximum of 375 inmates leaving, for November, the big chains».
In parallel, "the visits will continue to last half an hour", which, stresses the association, violates the law.
The requirements are based on an opinion of the Advisory Board of APAR, requested by the Association's Board of Directors following the "intransigence of the DGRSP in making life in Prisons return to normality with full compliance with the law".
In this opinion, the Advisory Board notes that many of the restrictions imposed by the pandemic have already been removed from the generality of the Portuguese, alerting to the effect of "maintaining illegal and even persecutory procedures" on the physical health and mental balance of inmates, not paying anything in in favor of their social reintegration, and considers that the extension of restrictive measures in the chains has no technical or scientific foundation.
In the statement, APAR highlights the work developed by DGRSP, the Directorate-General for Health and the 'task-force' for vaccination against ovid-19 in the 49 Portuguese chains, associating to this work the fact that there were no deaths or even severe cases of disease accused by the new coronavirus in prisons.
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