http://www.csrp.org/iron/challapalca_jun02.htm
The Committee to Support the Revolution in Peru recently received this statement from families of political prisoners being held in Peru's notorious Challapalca prison. The government of Peru has been using Challapalca prison to meet out especially brutal treatment to revolutionary prisoners who have carried out heroic resistance from inside the prison walls. June 2002.
TO THE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
TO ALL ORGANIZATIONS THAT DEFEND THE RIGHTS OF PRISONERS
From the family members of the Political Prisoners, arbitrarily imprisoned in the Challapalca-Tacna prison.
We address ourselves to public opinion and to the national and international press to publicly expose and denounce the following authorities: Fernando Olivera Vega, the Minister of Justice; Javier Bustamante, the President of the INPE; Hilma Luna Frisancho, the Puno Regional Director of the INPE; and Rolando Delgado Zea, the Warden of the Challapalca Prison, as the responsible parties for the following violations of national and international law:
For the application of a prison policy in Challapalca prison which infringes on the fundamental human rights of every individual, specifically, increasing isolation of prisoners, killing of prisoners and systematic genocide.
For the theft of personal belongings of the prisoners as they were moved from Yanamayo prison to Challapalca prison.
For the inhumane conditions and constant intimidation that family members of the prisoners are subjected to.
For the ongoing relocations of the prisoners to the Challapalca prison without complying with the required procedures for such relocations.
In the following section we document the above-mentioned abuses.
1. Violation of Fundamental Human Rights1.1 Isolation
The policy at the Challapalca prison is officially called "The Special Closed Regimen" but it is commonly known as the "punishment" prison because the guiding philosophy at the prison is that prisoners can be "rehabilitated" through the application of pressure, torture and even death. Challapalca's character as being in an extremely remote, "extra-territorial" region serves these ends, since international and national laws regarding human rights are completely disregarded at the prison. The injustices, continuous abuses and repression have been happening for a long time now as is shown by what happened in Yanamayo prison February 6th and 7th of 2000, when the prisoner, Carlos Ponce Perez, was killed. It is now known, through the release of a Vladivideo (Montesinos video-La Republica newspaper Sept. 30, 2001) that Vladimir Montesinos orchestrated an attack against the prisoners by authority forces inside the prison. The government and press version of the assault at that time said that "the shining path prisoners had staged a rebellion and that they themselves had killed their own companion". This version of events was thoroughly exposed as a lie with the release of the Montesinos video.
Visits: Due to the extreme remoteness, high cost of transport and harsh traveling conditions to the prison, family members cannot visit frequently. Upon entering the prison, freedom of movement is severely restricted, and family members and prisoners are harassed, and threatened. This is further aggravated and great pain and suffering is caused when family members finally do arrive to the prison, and then are not allowed to have direct contact with imprisoned family members who have to pass 30 days in total isolation without visits and then pass 120 more days with only visits through phone/waiting room booths. Intimate visits are also denied. Authorities claim that these measures are applications of DS 005-97-JUS and DS 006-2001. But DS-005-97 was repealed and DS-006-2201 (sic?) allows authorities to put restrictions on, but not deny the rights of the prisoners
Right to a Defense: Many of the prisoners need to submit court papers for the review of their cases, arrangements for upcoming release etc., but they cannot do so because the prison is so remote and because they are extremely poor and do not have the economic resources to carry out a defense. This makes it impossible to pay a lawyer, much less have a lawyer visit them. It should also be said that the INPE does not offer any legal services to the prisoners and what is worse, if an order to release a prisoner were to arrive they would simply throw the prisoner out on the street without even notifying their family.
News, Information and Education/Culture: Challapalca prison violates article 39 of the document of the United Nations (protection of persons who are detained or imprisoned) to which Peru is a signatory and article 74 of the Penal Code because it does not allow radio or TV. The only books in the prison are from the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's and there are a few magazines from the 1990's which do not serve in any way to educate or raise the cultural level of the prisoners. With great personal effort, family members take newspapers, including past weeks editions, to our imprisoned family members. Sometimes they are confiscated when entering the prison, as was the case on March 9 when an edition of "Rep�blica" and an edition of "Correo" were confiscated when authorities determined them to contain subversive articles. Outgoing letters from our imprisoned family members inside the prison are also confiscated. The authorities say the letters contain "subversive terms" when they write to us about the mistreatments that they are subjected to in the prison. This is what happened in the case of Alejandro Garc�a whose outgoing mail and incoming mail from visits was confiscated, allegedly because it contained political terms and content. During the administration of Alfonso Garay, a book by prisoner Carlos Liceras was confiscated and it later disappeared. These examples illustrate the clear intention of the administration to maintain prisoners in total isolation from the exterior world.Work: Authorities violate Article 71 sections 1 and 3 of the United Nations document and articles 60 and 65 of the CEP because there is no workshop in the prison. The few work materials and tools that family members take to the prisoners, with great personal difficulty, are confiscated due to "security reasons", an excuse made up without any legal basis. This is a violation of their own regulations which call for providing work to the prisoners so that the prisoners can contribute to their own rehabilitation.
1.2 AnnihilationNutrition: In the minimum requirements for treatment of prisoners in UN Article 20 section 1 (protection of detained and imprisoned persons) and Article 17 of the CEP, it is stipulated that every prisoner is to receive good quality and adequate quantities of food. This is not the case in Challapalca, in spite of the fact that the budget for each prisoner is 3.70 New Soles and all of this money goes to food (since they receive no personal cleaning supplies at all from prison authorities). As an example here is the menu for March 16, 2002:
Breakfast: 3 pieces of bread (below the regulation size and weight), one small boiled egg and watered down coffee.
Lunch: A very small piece of meat, rice and a small boiled potato, watery soup with hardly any vegetables or meat, and tea.
Afternoon: 2 pieces of bread (below regulation size and weight) and tea.
The same menu is served every day with slight variations for breakfast and lunch and prisoners are hardly ever served fruit, and when fruit is served, it is very bad quality. As an example, on April 20th, they were served fruit, but the fruit was almost completely rotten.
a): Health: The Doctor that treats the prisoners comes only one day per week. There is no permanent dentist. The dentist visits only one day every two months, and if prisoners do not have their name on the appointment list they cannot see the dentist. There are shortages of basic medicines and there are no specialists, no surgeon nor an eye doctor. This situation is made worse by the fact that the prison is almost 7 hours away from the nearest town. The lives and health of the prisoners are put at risk, as has already been the case for the prisoners Roman Rengifo Murrieta, Juan Isla Trinidad, Antonio Bendezu Vega, Jose Zamora Perez and Miguel Cuno Choquehuanca. Jose Zamora Perez suffered a an attack of tachycardia and since there was no medical personnel around to attend him, the authorities took another prisoner Miguel Atahualpa Inga, a medical surgeon, out of solitary confinement to give him first aid. Juan Isla Trinidad has heard no results from a medical meeting about him held in December of last year. In these ways the prison authorities are violating both Article 21 section 1, 2 and 3 of the United Nations Document which the Peruvian State is a signatory to and also Article 82 of the CEP.
Personal Cleaning Supplies and Hygiene: Our imprisoned family members have been in the prison for more than 7 months already and they have yet to be given detergent, soaps or clothes. This is a violation of Article 15 of the United Nations document. The prisoners who are most affected are those who do not receive any visitors, some since the day they were arrested. Authorities do not distribute bathtubs, buckets, washcloths, cleaners, pinesol, brooms or bleach, even though the INPE is obligated to provide all of these things to the prisoners. The few things that family members take to the prisoners like: shaving razors, small mirrors, and small scissors are confiscated for "security reasons" an excuse which has no basis in fact. Razors, when they are given out to the prisoners are used by the prisoners and immediately collected by the authorities without labeling them. They are all kept bundled together to once again be distributed later with the risk of spreading diseases. During the Alfonso Garay administration, the prisoner Hermes Rubio Hugo had 12 razors confiscated and they were later "lost".
SYSTEMATIC BEATINGS, TORTURE, AND DEATH/GENOCIDE: At 7:30 on the evening of September 21, 2001, the prisoners were moved to Challapalca with their hands tied behind their backs. When they arrived at the prison they were beaten and tortured savagely by the prison guards. Later they were forced to take off all of their clothes and prison guards continued beating them and stole the few personal possessions they had. During the beatings the guards were saying: "This is Challapalca, here we'll take you out to the guard fence and make it look like you're trying to escape and right there is where you will die. These orders come from above and we'll carry them out, there are no "human rights" here." These beatings and torture are confirmed by the medical records of the prison, the office of the defender of the people, and the International Red Cross which all verified the bruises and wounds inflicted during the torture. Prison authorities and guards showed absolutely no concern for the injuries and wounds, prisoners had already received at Yanamayo prison where huge quantities of bombs were launched against the prisoners when authorities stormed the Yanamayo cellblock. All of these occurrences happened during the Castro administration.
In the previous administration of Alfonso Garay, six prisoners were moved from La Capilla prison (October 6, 2001) and were beaten. One of the prisoners protested being unjustly relocated, beaten and having their personal belongings stolen, by beginning a hunger strike. When he had already begun his hunger strike he was beaten to such a point that he had to ask for medical assistance, but instead of getting him medical attention prison authorities sprayed him with tear gas and INPE personnel yelled at him "die you bastard!"
On October 26, 2001, six prisoners from La Capilla prison, 3 of them political prisoners, were forcefully relocated, tortured and beaten, one of them to the point of fainting (Santos Asqui Araca). He had just recently come out of surgery a few days before but he was tortured and beaten just as the others were.
On October 28, 2001, six prisoners from Tacna, and on October 31, 2001, four more were moved. They were all beaten.
On November 28, 2001, 27 prisoners from the Socabaya prison, 5 of them political prisoners, were moved. The brutality and cruelty these prisoners were subjected to was even more extensive. Upon entering the prison, two of the prisoners were forced to pass through the dark passageway. A week later the prisoners were moved from cell block 2 to cell block 1, where they were once again savagely beaten and tortured to the point where they fainted. They were "revived" with shocks from an electrical rod. They were then forced to pass through the dark passageway. The director Alfonso Garay and subdirector, Mr. Rojas both participated directly in this beating.
During the administration of Orlando Delgado Zea, on the morning of March 28, three prisoners were moved from La Capilla prison. They were tortured and beaten the same way. That same morning the prisoners Roman Rengifo Murrieta, Miguel Vela del Aguila and Wilfredo Bobadilla Torres were taken out of the hole and at approximately 8:30 am they were beaten by the supervisor Gonzalez and 5 more agents of the INPE.
b) Prisoner's Cells: The cells that prisoners live in are designed to punish and torture them. The windows are small, they have darkened windowpanes and a cement block which prevent sunlight from entering. This makes it impossible for the prisoners to undertake almost any activity which they might want to do. This violates Article 11 of the United Nations document. When prisoner delegates or representatives ask for better food or medical attention, etc� they are threatened with punishment and more than once they have been put in isolation just for requesting better treatment. As is usually the case, they are first punished and then a week later they are judged. In this way they are denied their right to a defense which is guaranteed to every prisoner (Article 34 of the CEP). The worst of these cases is the case of the prisoner Miguel Atahualpa Inga. There is absolutely no legal basis for this prisoner to be detained for more than 7 months in absolute isolation, which is made even worse by the fact that he receives constant death threats.
Regarding the so-called searches and checks: Article 15 of the CEP stipulates that to do searches an agent of the court (fiscal) must be present and personal belongings of the prisoners must be respected. The exact opposite is what happens. They throw everything out of the cells into the hallways without taking any precautions about breaking personal belongings. They steal personal belongings of the prisoners including complaints, lawsuit filings, notebooks, authorized medicines, small mirrors and nail clippers. On March 21 of this year, the regular prisoners also had items stolen such as: stoves, pots, spoons, tape recorders, tapes, etc. In protest, these prisoners decided to go on a hunger strike, but two days later, in the early morning on Saturday, they were dragged out of their cells to be attacked and beaten. This is the way the authorities stopped their hunger strike.
During these types of searches authorities use humiliating methods such as when, that same day of the search, prisoners were forced to take off all of their clothes and become completely naked. This caused such outrage among the prisoners that they held a general protest. The authorities then attacked the prisoners, beating and kidnapping the prisoner Roman Rengifo M. This violates Article 34 of the CEP.c) Harassment: During the night, close to the cell windows, guards shoot their guns into the air, ignite explosives, blow whistles, rake their billy clubs against the bars, and enter the cells in the early morning hours impeding the prisoners from sleeping normally. This is causing pain and suffering, which is classified as torture in the United Nations document.
2. Stealing the personal belongings of the prisoners during relocationsIn Yanamayo prison with the approval and guarantee of the provincial Deputy District Attorney of Puno, Dr Percy Cardenas Posada two lists of belongings were made up, one with the prisoner belongings which would be taken to Challapalca and the other list with the belongings which would be returned to family members. Neither of the lists contains all of the belongings of the prisoners. Notably missing, are clothes, shoes (almost new), finished handicrafts (made of bone), and several groups of leather materials that the prisoners had been using to make purses, wallets, etc.
To date, the authorities still have not turned over the money documented on the list which Mrs. Hilma Luna is obligated to return to us as was promised in the list agreement. In addition, there is lost money that does not even appear on the list. Our imprisoned family members had approximately S/. 3500 altogether (three thousand five hundred soles) which is unaccounted for.
Their belongings were just recently turned over to us in April of this year, for the sole purpose of letting us verify that all the food was completely rotten and the clothes were also rotten and full of fungus. It should also be pointed out that the INPE has illegally appropriated kitchen utensils (strainers, pitchers, grinders, blenders and others), a television, VCR, and tape rewinder. They claim that they are INPE property, which is completely false since the INPE has never shown any interest in, and much less provided the prisoners with these necessities. This is why, we the family members, have had to provide these things to the prisoners. They should appear in the logbook of articles entered into the prison since all of them went through and were approved by the prison administration.
3. The inhumane conditions that family members are subjected to, endangering our health and our lives
We are forced to travel to the Challapalca prison in cargo trucks since there is no normal public transportation. The area is so remote that the only lodging is in the house of a townsperson whom we must beg to allow us to stay in his home since the INPE has threatened the townspeople and tells them that we are "dangerous". In this place, we have to sleep on the floor, there are no bathrooms, much less potable water or electricity. Under these already difficult conditions, we have to withstand temperatures of below 0 degrees Celsius at an altitude of more than 5,000 meters (16,000 feet). In addition to being exposed to these harsh conditions, we have the additional hardship of having to pay the very high cost to travel this distance to visit the prisoners, since we are poor people ourselves. In the prison they confiscate from us the written denunciations and complaints that our imprisoned family members make of their treatment, saying that it is strictly prohibited to remove them from the prison and we ourselves can be accused of terrorism for doing so. The authorities do not provide any facilities and make no effort to facilitate families visiting the prisoners as they are required to due by the CEP.
We also firmly reject the campaign that was launched by some of the media in which they implicate family members of the prisoners in being involved in subversive acts just as they tried to implicate the prisoners. The prisoners are subjected to extreme, subhuman imprisonment conditions, and under these circumstances, the last thing they would want to do would be to organize subversive acts that would create a negative image before public opinion. Using this method of slander, they hope to silence us so that we won't continue the legal procedures such as the Application for a Writ of Habeas Corpus Corrective Action (Recurso de Habeas Corpus Correctivo), which was presented in September and to this date the judicial authorities have not resolved in order to present it to the Court. This makes abundantly clear the amount of influence that the above-mentioned authorities have in this whole process. In addition, the authorities have been postponing implementation of the Supreme Decree 023-2001- REGULATIONS OF THE PENAL CODE so that they can continue with their reprisals against the prisoners.
All the occurrences mentioned above are classified as crimes of genocide, Article II, of the Convention for the Prevention and Sanction of the Crime of Genocide of which the Peruvian State is a signatory.
4. Continuing RelocationsWe also denounce the fact that on April 25 of this year a group of 31 prisoners, were moved from "Miguel Castro Castro" Prison in Lima to the prison of Challapalca. 13 of the 31 are political prisoners and four of them are between the ages of 62 and 68. These four prisoners had to be subsequently moved to Yanamayo prison due to their critical poor state of health. Up to the present, they are still in the clinic of Yanamayo prison. This relocation was a surprise operation done in the early morning hours. There was no evaluation done by the board of discipline and much less a medical evaluation of the older prisoners. The authorities callously carried forward putting the lives of the older prisoners at risk since Challapalca is a freezing area at an altitude of 5000 meters.
All of these occurrences show that the different administrations have taken advantage of the isolation and remoteness of the Challapalca prison and it extra-territorial character to violate the laws which apply to prisoners and their families. With the orientation of promoting and allowing repressive actions, assassinations, corruption, misappropriation and theft of public funds and a blatant disregard for the law, they have acted with the support of higher authorities, who maintain a policy of repression and revenge against our imprisoned family members.
For these reasons, we demand the closing of the Challapalca prison because it is a concentration camp where a plan of increasing isolation, annihilation and genocide is being executed. Its existence also violates the United Nations International Agreement on Civil and Political Rights - final conclusions of the Human Rights committee: Peru 11-15-2000.
Finally, we demand that the right of all prisoners to return to their place of origin, to the care of their family be upheld. It is the responsibility and obligation of the government to defend and re-educate the prisoner so that the prisoner can be re-incorporated into society.
We thank you very much for your understanding and we are confident that the demands put forth in this document fall within our rights guaranteed by the law. We hope to receive your valuable support, so as to ensure that the laws are enforced and that the rights of our imprisoned family members and of our rights, the families of the prisoners, are respected and to put an end to the present situation where our rights are constantly being violated.
Sincerely,
Families of the Political Prisoners of Challapalca prison.
Lima, 31 April 2002
- International Emergency Committee to Defend the Life of Abimael Guzman
- Committee to Support the Revolution in Peru
Relive the FIFA World Cup goals with exclusive video highlights!
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/fc/en
