Prison officials are carrying out an unprecedented mobilization in Catalonia in the face of an unprecedented event: the murder, at the hands of a prisoner, of Nuria López, cook at the Mas d’Enric prison (Tarragona). “We are all Nuria,” repeat the workers, who have been warning for months regarding an increase in attacks and insecurity in prisons. For them, crime represents a point of no return. The protests grew this Friday with the blocking of access to penitentiary centers, which forced six of them to confine almost 5,000 inmates in their cells. A high-voltage situation to which the Minister of Justice, Gemma Ubasart, asked to put an end to it due to the “risk” it poses to the workers themselves. The measure caused “unrest” in the prisons and forced the suspension of the first family visits. The actions of the unions represent in any case a challenge to a Government with its bags packed for the electoral advance called for May 12 by the presidentPere Aragonés.
Late Friday night, officials lifted the barricades they had installed in Mas d’Enric, Quatre Camins, Joves, Brians 1 and Brians 2, according to sources from the Department of Justice. The end of the lockdown does not necessarily mean that normality will return over the weekend. If the protest continues and staff numbers remain low and without being able to guarantee security, the inmates will continue to be confined. In a joint statement issued following Ubasart’s words appealing to responsibility to avoid greater evils, the prison unions have assured that “the mobilization will continue”, at least, until they have “another interlocutor”, in reference to the request of resignation of Amand Calderó, secretary of alternative penal measures and rehabilitation of the Generalitat.
Aside from the Justice Department, the rest of the Government seems oblivious to the conflict for now. Various patrols of the Mossos d’Esquadra, including the ARRO unit (a type of riot police) moved to the blocking points on Friday, but did not intervene. The commanders of the force did not convene a coordination center (CECOR), as is usually done in any serious situation, and limited themselves to following the incidents by telephone, until late on Friday followingnoon when the director of the police, Pere Ferrer joined the meetings with Justice.
The gale originated on Wednesday followingnoon. Iulian O. took a knife from the kitchen of Mas d’Enric – where he had been assigned as he was a trusted prisoner – and fatally stabbed Nuria in the cold room for reasons that are being investigated. Later, with the same knife, he committed suicide. The prisoner was serving a sentence for having murdered, also with a knife, a prostitute in 2016, but for good behavior he had been given the privilege of working in the kitchen and earning a small salary. Aside from the questions raised by this decision, the murder of a prison worker, the first in the recent history of Spain, has angered the workers like never before because, in their opinion, the ideal breeding ground was being created for, Sooner or later, such a tragedy would occur.
In a similar way to what happened with the peasant mobilizations in Catalonia, the protests by officials have also forced traditional unions to follow suit. The Black Shirts platform believes that, with the murder, the time has come to stand up and propose forceful actions. On Thursday, they vented some of their pain and anger in front of the Justice Department. Dressed in black and with their hands painted red, some workers tried to force their way into the ministry’s headquarters and demanded the resignation of Ubasart, without a party card but appointed by an ERC executive.
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The Government has reacted lukewarmly, with doubts, to a mobilization that has grown larger as the hours have passed. Justice angered the workers even more when, in a public statement, he conveyed his condolences to the relatives and friends “of the people who died” in prison, alluding to the victim and her executioner. Nor was the visit that Ubasart made to the Mas d’Enric prison on Thursday night of much use, where he praised the efforts of some officials who were already demanding his head and who feel abandoned by the administration. Ubasart, in particular, is blamed for promoting a penitentiary policy more concerned with the rights of prisoners than with the safety of officials, and for promoting a policy of “zero containment” with inmates in conflict situations, which in their opinion of officials leaves them more exposed.
The unrest led on Friday to a broader protest, which put normality in Catalan prisons in check and is a challenge to the ERC Government. From early in the morning, the workers blocked access to the Catalan prisons, so the shift change might not be made. Due to the lack of personnel, in six of these prisons, which total 4,936 inmates, they had to be confined in cells and only the supply of food and medication was guaranteed. The incidents were repeated, to a lesser extent, in other centers. From the crisis cabinet, Ubasart asked the directors to prioritize maintaining the maximum possible normality. In the followingnoon, at a press conference, he appealed to the “responsibility” of the unions to end a blockade that also represents “a risk” for the workers. Especially, with the horizon of the weekend, when exit permits and communications between prisoners and their families occur.
The protests have also altered the political environment in the midst of the pre-campaign for the regional elections in Catalonia, scheduled for May 12. The PSC requested the “urgent” appearance in Parliament of Ubasart – who had already shown his willingness to do so – while Junts per Catalunya regretted “the abandonment” of the officials and has asked the Administration to address their demands.
The workers, meanwhile, keep up the pulse. They ask that measures be adopted in the face of a reality—the increase in attacks in prisons due to the pandemic—that has been admitted by the administration: a few months ago, Ubasart announced the hiring, in three years, of a hundred professionals to stop this phenomenon and also the increase in suicides. The officials demand, among other demands, to be considered agents of authority (so that the attacks they suffer are accompanied by greater punishment) and more personnel to deal with conflicts with guarantees.
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