Prisoners, both condemned and pending trial, held in the Police HQs of Salonica have gone on hunger strike in protest for the conditions in their cells.
Prisoners held in Salonica's Police headquarters, both condemned and pending trial, went on hunger strike on Thursday 7/05/08 protesting about the conditions of their captivity while waiting to be transferred in prisons per se. According to the inmates living conditions in the Police run institution are terrible, with a total disregard for regulations. The premises lack basic hygienic facilities and standards and they have no possibility to exercise or walk in the fresh air in a yard. The living quarters of the establishment house as much as 12 times the designed number of inmates. The demands of the inmates are being supported by the Lawyer's Board of the city, which claimed the conditions were despairing. The inmates also face a de facto disability to exercise their voting rights in the coming elections.
The hunger strike comes as the first since the autumn deluge of prison action, when all prisons across the country went on an open-end hunger strike that forced the government to promise the release of more than half the prison population of the country by the end of April. The promises have not materialised, and is unlikely that the current government has any intention to see them through as on Friday the 8th of May, it surprisingly dissolved the parliament in a legal coup that absolves it and its MPs of all the legal persecution procedures regarding a series of scandals that have riddled its rule. As the country is now in a legislative and legal limbo, the fate of prisoners looks grim.
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