Demands of prisoners on strike (continued)

The prisoners’ demands cover a wide range of concerns including revoking measures instituted this year which drastically limited visitation privelages, including whether visitors could ring food in to supplement the otherwise meager diet provided to prisoners.

The prisoners are also demanding compliance with penal code through ensuring that the prison is properly staffed, including a psychologist, social worker, a prison warden and deputy warden; authorizing organizations and institutions that formally supported rehabilitation and reinsertion processes to continue with their work inside the prisons; an end to the arbitrary and illegal transfer of prisoners to the maximum security prison; adequate medical care and the cleanup of a garbage dump located next to the cellblock.

In addition to these specific demands concerning the situation of each prison participating in the hunger strike, the inmates are also calling attention to the human rights situation in the maximum security prison in Zacatecoluca. They ask the authorities to adhere to the Constitution and penal code that protect the physical and moral integrity and personal privacy of inmates, that they provide education and opportunities for rehabilitation as mandated by the penal code, that they allow prisoners to receive visitors under the norms established in the penal code, that their right to adequate food be respected and that the authorities examine article 103 of the penal code, which relates to solitary confinement.