Pakistan: submerged and forgotten

Zainab Mahboob. The situation greatly depends on the region. The province of Sindh¹ was particularly affected by the floods. Several prisons were damaged, especially those located in the districts of Sukkur and Hyderabad. No prisoner deaths were reported. One prison guard died, as he was standing at a check post and the roof fell on him. In the Dadu district jail, the walls fell and the kitchen was destroyed. This lead to the closure of the facility and the transfer of its prisoners.

Most prison staff did not leave their posts, despite many of them being currently housed in camps due to the destruction of their house. Some measures were taken to ensure their safety but as the prisons in Sindh are already understaffed, the penitentiary authorities did not allow their staff to leave altogether.

There was no light or electricity for weeks on end in Sindh province. Some prisons are autonomous in electricity, but most have been plunged into darkness. The power has since returned, but the situation remains complicated, particularly because of rising electricity costs. Many stocks of food products such as milk or rice were lost because of the floods, making it necessary to replenish supplies from outside.

Other difficulties face the prison administration in Sindh. Prisoners are not considered a priority in terms of health care, because they still have a place to stay. Outside prisons, people lost their homes and have nowhere to sleep. The government’s first concern is therefore to provide food and medicine to these individuals, and to avoid the risk of diseases developing, such as dengue fever and skin infections, which are common in flood-affected areas. The prison administration considers that this risk is not currently present in prisons, and that prisoners’ health are not a matter of concern. Beyond the supply of paracetamol and other basic medicines, the prison administration is not able to deal with diseases such as dengue.

Fakhra Irshad. The provinces of Punjab, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) were relatively spared from the floods and no prison facilities were directly touched. The destruction or damage of many roads did however affect prisoners and prison staff. Prisoners’ families are currently unable to travel and visit their loved ones. Prison staff are also prevented from driving prisoners to their court hearings.

ZM. No concrete evacuation plan was drawn up, the idea being simply to try to save the prisoners affected. This was done in a very haphazard way: whenever a district was hit by the floods, the prisoners were immediately moved to another facility. These transfers aggravated prison overcrowding, with already congested facilities that were forced to accommodate the transferred prisoners.

Prisoner transfers also raise the issue of the right of access to a judge. In Pakistan, prisoners fall under the jurisdiction of the court in which they were arrested. Prisoners held in Hyderabad depends on the Hyderabad court. If you transfer them from Hyderabad to Sukkur, they remain under the jurisdiction of the Hyderabad court. Yet it takes five hours to travel from Sukkur to Hyderabad, effectively preventing them from attending their hearings.

Prison administrations claim that they have obtained transfer permissions but have in practice merely informed the courts of the transfers. They assume that most hearings will be suspended anyway because of the floods.

The prisons in Shikarpur (Sukkur region) and Dadu (Hyderabad region) were the most affected by the floods. They are still under reconstruction, which will probably last for another few weeks. Prisoners were mobilised to help pump out the water when necessary but have not been involved in the repair works. The government’s plan is to transfer the prisoners back to their original facility once the works have been carried out and the roads cleared, re-establishing access.

ZM. Regarding the floods, nothing has been or is being currently done. The floods were really unexpected, but I am not sure that if such climatic events happen again in ten years, we will be more or better prepared. Pakistan had already experienced major floods in 2010 and yet was not prepared at all 12 years later. To be honest, I am not certain we will ever be, especially when it comes to prisons.

Measures are being put in place however to deal with heatwaves. These are becoming more and more frequent. It has been very hot in recent years in the provinces of Sindh and Punjab. In Sindh’s prisons, solutions are emerging to cope with the heat. The first goal is to become completely electricity independent. In Sindh province, a few solar panels have been installed in small prisons. To date, the prison administration does not have the funds to provide solar panels in large facilities where the electricity consumption is much higher. Prison administrations are also seeking to install air-conditioning so that a regular temperature of 26-27 degrees can be maintained in all prisons. In any case, it will take several years before Pakistani prisons can be completely electricity independent and air conditioning can be provided in all facilities.