Macedonia's prisons to be renovated

24/03/2008

Macedonia's overcrowded prisons, with living conditions well below standards established by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, are to be improved by May 2010.

By Dimitar Bocevski for Southeast European Times in Skopje - 24/03/08

Macedonian prisons are due for renovation. [Getty Images]

About 4m euros in government funds and 10m euros in European Council credits will be used to extensively renovate Macedonia's five largest prisons from April 2008 until May 2010.

The goal of the multiphase project is to meet EU standards by renovating prisons in the cities of Prilep, Ohrid, and Stip, the Idrizovo central state prison and the Sutka jail.

"In Idrizovo we plan to build a hospital prison for addicts and chronically ill patients, a facility for inmates with longer sentences and a facility for older inmates. The female prison will be transformed into a female state prison," said Ministry of Justice director of the Sanctions Enforcement Directorate Jordan Mihajlovski.

He added, "The European Council, in considering our application for EU membership, mainly urged us to raise overall standards. We aim to bring the prison conditions in line with human rights requirements."

About 1.8m euros from the CARDS 2006 project will be used for reconstruction of prisons in Stip and Prilep, and the central state prison Idrizovo. Afterward, Stip will be upgraded to a regional prison and its capacity will grow to 400, relieving some of the overcrowding at Idrizovo.

"Many shortcomings in Macedonia's prisons from the 2004 monitoring have been eliminated," EU Council representative Eric Shivanidze said. He added, "The living conditions saw some improvement, but the prison security and administration personnel shortages still exist."

Deputy ombudsman Dragi Celevski concluded after his 2006 and 2007 prison visits that, "Living conditions and the procedures for approving furloughs, visits, and other privileges were the most common problems for which convicts sought our help."

The overarching problem he found, however, was that inmates were unaware of their rights. "We instructed them on how to protect their rights," said Celevski.

Prisoners say that cells were packed, with six to eight people in a four-person cell, some sleeping on floor mats, with stale air, surrounded by mold-covered walls and ceilings. At times, inmates with short sentences were in the same cell with convicts serving long sentences. Drugs were available more easily than on the streets, while the price was sometimes ten times higher.

Currently, Macedonia's prison population is 2,200. Of that, 1,350 are in Idrizovo, exceeding its capacity by 400. The Sutka jail is also full after several large-scale roundups in recent months.

Complaints about prison conditions were made repeatedly during the last 17 years by the Macedonia chapter of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights and other human rights-oriented NGOs, as well as by inmates' relatives and lawyers.