Ethiopia has a harsh prison system in where they would beat and torture their prisoners. According to the Association of Human Rights in Ethiopia their has been many testimonies of torture and other inhuman and illegal treatments of prisoners in many undisclosed areas. Belayneh Alemneh, a 29 year old at resident of Amhara Regional state has claimed that he was forced to spend his night on the floor with no food. The next day, he was severely and consistently beaten for the next two days. They demanded him to falsely testify against Engineer Yilkal Getnet and Abebe Akalu, leaders of Semayawi Party (a legally registered political party), and to falsely tell the court that they were linked with Ginbot 7. Once he was moved to another prison he stated that the beatings got worse. He stated that he was hit with their sticks and electrical wires.
In the middle of the day he would be called down to be interrogation and had him skipped lunch, other times he would be called around 9pm and beat him until 12am to where he was so weak that he couldn’t move on his own for three days. Another prisoner has stated that once he arrested his started suffering from diabetes, cholesterol, hemorrhoids, and kidney failure. He believes that the cause of these major health problems is due to abuse and maltreatments he endured in prison. He stated that the officials hid his medical records so they could deny an early release. The father of the late Armaye Wako claimed that his son was beaten to death while being confined in prison. His father stated “When I went to visit him, his hands and face had swollen; he told me they were beating him.”. When going to visit his son he was told that he was in the hospital for a stomach ache but, just hours later they called the family discussing that their son had passed. When arriving to the hospital and examining the body they noticed that his head was crushed and that his stomach was cut open and stitched back as if someone had took out his organs. Ethiopia’s prison system was not one of the friendliest.
Venezuela’s prison system is not any better. In eastern Caracas, the Chacao district has cells made for 36 inmates who are supposed to stay for a maximum of 3 days until being released or transferred to a larger prison facility. The crisis in Venezuela judicial system causes them to instead hold over 150 prisoners in that holding cell where some have been there for months or years. Many prisoners obtain red lumpy rashes on their skin which could be a sign of contagious scabies. With the medical crisis, most of the prisoners can not get treatments for these illnesses.They are also only allowed access to water for an hour once every day. Daniel Sayago, a 24 year old prisoner, stated “In these conditions, your mind deteriorates. You have to shut down parts of it to survive.” After a year and four months of being locked up his conditions has gotten worse. The prison system in Venezuela was never very pleasing but, lately the setting has gotten a lot worse because of a violent crime wave overwhelming the judicial system. With the devastating number of murders and killings, larger facilities with a capacity of 20,000 is holding 52,000 inmates. Inside the cell made for 5,000 prisoners is a holding of 20,000 inmates. Ramon Muchacho, the mayor of Chacao, says that he wants to move the prisoners out the lockup and into larger facilities but, the prison authorities will not allow it.
According to an article on hrw.org, for many years now police officials and security forces has been tortured prisoners for years at a prison called Jail Ogaden in Ethiopia.. In the report, “https://www.hrw.org/node/319795 “ it is stated that the prisoners are being brutalized and neglected. It has been described as a horrific reality of constant abuse and torture by former prisoners. Prisoners would be stripped down naked to get beat then forced to perform humiliating acts in front of the entire prison to install fear and shame. Kabbas, also known as prison guards beat and harassed prisoners during night interrogations then pass them along to prison leaders who would then chose a further punishment. The reason for all the torture was to get them to confess to membership in the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a banned opposition group. There was an interview held of 100 interviewees with 70 of them being former prisoners who would say that they saw prisoners dying in their cells. Then the female former prisoners told all about the rape. Females had to give birth in their cells without any skilled birth attendants. Lactating mothers were not allowed any extra food. The children that had to grow up in the facilities and prison system did not receive any form of education.
