After recent video evidence emerged
from physical inmate abuse by guards in the Gldani prison were shown
on TV, hundreds of people have taken post in the country's capital of
Tbilisi. The videos aired on TV9 capture guards sodomizing an
inmate, as well as physical abuse of another inmate. Officials
immediately took action in the prosecution of 10 guards and other
prison officials as an investigation is underway under the premises
of “torture and human and degrading treatment”. Georgia
president Mikheil Saakashvili has contributed his support of the
arrests of said prison officials, possibly in conjunction with hopes
of presidential election support for the upcoming parliamentary
elections on Oct. 1. It is also rumoured to have been a staged footage account, with a large compensation for the assailants carrying out the attacks. However, in 2010 the same Georgian prison had reported cases of inmate abuse, both physical and sexual.
Regardless of here-say, Georgia is not the only
country plagued by human rights violations in regards to prison
violence. In 2007, a report by the United States Bureau of Justice
Statistics reported 70,000 inmates of American penitentiaries are annually sexually victimized.
It also stated that 2.9% were staff-on-inmate sexual abuse. These
occurrences frequent prison inmates, as the inmates are victims as
often times officials running the penitentiary blur their roles as
enforcers of the law but instead feed into the power and control held
over inmates. This hierarchy of forced power upon weaker subjects is
also found among inmates. Many of the victims are weak and frail in
statue, gay, first offenders, and those sentenced for violence and
sexual abuse of minors. Often times victimized inmates are many
times defenseless, for if they should speak out, they could face
repercussions of further torture and abuse. Under premises of the
International Human Rights Law, these conditions fall under
ill-treatment and torture and must be investigated and ensure
criminal sanctions against the assailants to be held criminally
responsible.
Sept. 21, 2012 15.35
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