In July, Malawi's Ombudsman and Human Rights Commissioner...

In July, Malawi's Ombudsman and Human Rights Commissioner Enock Chibwana visited one of the prisons in the country where he found prisoners in a horrible state after having been held for long periods without even the knowledge of the Justice Ministry. "We must review the law and improve the conditions under which death penalty prisoners live as a matter of urgency," he observed after visiting Zomba prison, where he found 41 young prisoners who have been languishing for years. "It is torture to keep offenders suffering in condemned cells for a long time," the Malawi Inspectorate of Prisons agreed. It has been urging the State to review the plight and degrading conditions of the country's 7,000 prisoners. Headed by High Court Judge Duncan Tambala, the MIP said: "There are gross violations of prisoner's rights; people must know that even prisoners sentenced to death have rights." Tambala said it was an infringement of human rights to let prisoners live in unbearable conditions such as being denied food and medical care, which lead to great suffering and death. Another MIP member First Grade Magistrate S. Mbingwa commented that "most prisoners have been reduced to ghosts and skeletons, like in a concentration camp. The only prison hospital in Zomba is congested; there is no transport to take the sick prisoners from other prisons." Another member of the Inspectorate, Father Piergiorgo Gamba, said, "The plight of the prisoners is like an open wound, impossible to heal. We need to change prisons; since the fundamental goal of imprisonment is to rehabilitate the offender for reintegration into the community as a productive member of the society, they cannot remain dumping grounds." In one of its reports, the MIP criticized the government for not taking urgent measures to redress the appalling conditions. The report indicated that in 1997, at Zomba Prison alone, 170 inmates died from food shortages and lack of medical care. One way of alleviating problems confronting Malawian prisoners has been proposed by the Chair of the Malawi National Committee on Community Service (MNCCS), Supreme Court of Appeal Justice Michael Mtegha. He argues that people convicted of minor offenses should be sentenced to do community work instead of being sent to prison.