ISOTITA, the prison officers’ union, said Cyprus’s Central Prisons are in a state of destitution, placing responsibility on the state, in response to a philenews report published today on drug trafficking inside the jail.
The union said cells built for far fewer are packed with 20 to 30 detainees, to the point where some inmates are sleeping on potato crates, and prison wings are being sprayed for bedbugs.
ISOTITA argued that the figures in today’s report are striking but ultimately serve the narrative of the Prisons Administration and the Justice Ministry, functioning as a convenient excuse for their inaction. The indirect message being conveyed, the union said, is that police arrest, courts hand down sentences, so overcrowding is logical and inevitable.
The reality, ISOTITA countered, is far darker. It said that for eight months officials have repeatedly announced plans to build new prisons, but that these have amounted to nothing but talk, meeting after meeting, and repeated postponements, with no action taken.
Authorities are simply packing people in without any real plan, the union said, and conditions have exceeded every limit of human dignity, with cells still crowded to 20 or 30 detainees and inmates sleeping on potato crates.
This approach does not just demonstrate incompetence on the part of the Administration and the Ministry, ISOTITA said, but puts both staff and detainees at direct, daily risk, with conditions now explosive. Prison officers are left to manage the situation unaided, the union added, risking their safety every day to keep control of what it called a ticking time bomb.
ISOTITA said the figures are easy to read from air-conditioned offices, and called on officials to stop hiding behind the Anti-Drugs Unit (YKAN) and the courts as an alibi, and to take responsibility before there are victims to mourn. The union said its patience has run out.
