Information, topic by topic, on prisons across the world

December 24, 2018

Russia: le directeur d'une prison suspendu après des cas de travaux forcés

News

Asia Europe Russia

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the French version.

December 17, 2018

Russia: notorious 19th-century Moscow prison will be closed

News

Asia Europe Russia

Russian prison officials have announced plans to close the infamous Butyrka prison in central Moscow and relocate its inmates to the city’s outskirts.

December 9, 2018

Russia: prison torture victim 'brought back to life four times'

News

Asia Europe Torture Russia

Former inmate Yevgeny Makarov describes how guards choked him with a towel and poured water into his mouth to suffocate him.

December 7, 2018

Russia: inmates In far East launch hunger strike to protest prison conditions

News

Asia Europe Material conditions Protest Violence Russia

Eight inmates in Russia’s Far Eastern Sakha-Yakutia region have launched a hunger strike to protest conditions at the prison where they are being held, the head of a regional human monitoring group says.

November 28, 2018

Bangladesh : Footage shows 'prison-like units' built for Rohingya on Bangladesh island

News

Asia Bangladesh

Exclusive footage obtained by the Guardian has revealed the stark concrete camps being built for the Rohingya on a sediment island in Bangladesh, as part of a controversial plan to relocate hundreds of thousands of refugees.

November 27, 2018

Japan: Carlos Ghosn, déjà une semaine en prison

News

Asia Japan

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the French version

October 19, 2018

Thailand: "dans les prisons, on est traités comme des animaux"

News

Asia Thailand

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the French version.

October 9, 2018

Japan: frozen time, frozen days

Testimonial

Asia Japan

Geoffrey is currently incarcerated in Osaka prison. He tells, for Prison Insider, what a day looks like. But not any day: weekends and holidays, when time seems to stop.

October 1, 2018

Indonesia: prison break, convicts on the run after disaster

News

Asia Indonesia

Some 1,200 Indonesian convicts are on the run from three different detention facilities in devastated Sulawesi after the region was rocked by a powerful earthquake and tsunami, a justice ministry official said Monday. One prison in tsunami-struck Palu city - built to hold just 120 people - saw most…

September 17, 2018

Birmanie : une quarantaine de détenus s'évadent en camion poubelle

News

Asia Myanmar (Burma)

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the French version.

August 21, 2018

Jailed filmmaker Oleg Sentsov on day 100 of Russia hunger strike

News

Asia Europe Russia

Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov on Tuesday entered day 100 of his hunger strike, as he languishes in a Russian Arctic prison on terror charges with little hope of release.

August 13, 2018

Beaten, not broken: the Russian ex-inmate covering the torture trial of former jailers

News

Asia Europe Torture Russia

Ruslan Vakhapov says ‘desire for revenge in a legal way’ led him to expose brutality in prison system. He recognised all the prison guards on trial last month for the brutal torture of an inmate in a Yaroslavl prison. They used to be his jailers too.

August 13, 2018

Bangladesh : un photographe de presse en prison après les manifestations

News

Asia Bangladesh

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the French version.

August 13, 2018

Russie : "Oleg Sentsov est en train de mourir dans une prison parce qu'il dit des choses qui dérangent", affirme Françoise Nyssen

News

Asia Europe Russia

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the French version.

August 7, 2018

Russia: widespread torture, extortion detailed in St. Petersburg prisons

News

Asia Europe Torture Violence Russia

Allegations of torture in correctional facilities across Russia have gained national attention after a leaked video showed the violent beating of an inmate at a prison in Yaroslavl. A number of prison guards and wardens have since been detained and some convicted, while the Federal Prison Service v…

August 6, 2018

Thailand: prisoners get help to go straight

News

Asia Thailand

New scheme gives assistance to ex-convicts to break cycle of reoffending .

August 3, 2018

Russian ex-prisoners speak out over torture after leaked video

News

Asia Europe Torture Russia

Alexander Zarechnev is one of a growing number of Russians to break their silence over violence and torture in Russian prisons after a widely shared video of guards beating an inmate shocked the country.

July 24, 2018

Russia: guard accused of suffocating inmate to death

News

Asia Europe Russia

A prison guard in western Russia’s Bryansk region has been detained on suspicion of suffocating an inmate to death by binding his face with a piece of cloth.

July 24, 2018

Russia: rare witness to horror of Stalin's Gulag prisons dies

News

Asia Europe Russia

A rare survivor of the harshest Stalin-era labour camps has died aged 89 in Russia’s far east.

July 23, 2018

Indonesia: search on for two dozen inmates after Indonesia prison break

News

Asia Indonesia

Indonesian authorities are searching for two dozen inmates who escaped from a prison by sawing through the iron bars of a ventilation window, police said Monday (Jul 23).

July 23, 2018

Six arrested in wake of leaked Russian prison torture video

News

Asia Europe Torture Russia

Six prison employees have been arrested and at least 17 fired following the release of a 2017 video showing a detainee being tortured at a prison outside Moscow.

July 23, 2018

Indonésie : de luxueuses cellules de prison en échange de pots-de-vin

News

Asia Indonesia

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the French version.

July 9, 2018

Inside Japan’s chilling death row prisons where inmates are executed with no warning after decades waiting to die

News

Asia Death penalty Japan

Seven members of a brainwashed doomsday cult were hanged last week in a sterile Japanese execution chamber for carrying out a deadly gas attack in 1995. The Asian country is one of only two first world democracies, along with the US, who kill their own citizens.

June 20, 2018

Russia: lawmakers finally move forward with legislation that could release 100,000 prisoners

News

Asia Europe Russia

After 10 years, the State Duma has adopted a second reading of legislation that would mean less time behind bars for Russians convicted of many crimes.