ISLAMABAD – Human Rights Watch (HRW) is urging Pakistan to take “immediateand urgent” steps to ensure that prisoners and detainees have access toadequate medical care and protective measures against the coronavirus.
The New York-based rights group says Pakistani prisons, jails, anddetention centers should also consider “reducing their populations throughappropriate supervised or early release of low-risk detainees.”
Human Rights Watch said the risk of contagion is particularly serious atovercrowded prisons in Pakistan — a country where at least 660 cases ofcoronavirus have been confirmed with at least three deaths. With littletesting available, Human Rights Watch said the real number of coronaviruscases is “likely much higher.”
Brad Adams, the rights group’s Asia director, said Pakistani authorities“should urgently act to limit the chance of a catastrophic outbreak” atovercrowded detention facilities where he said the government’s“longstanding failure to ensure hygienic and humane conditions isamplifying the threat posed by COVID-19.”
According to a report last year by Pakistan’s government, there were 77,275prisoners being held in 2019 at 114 prisons meant to have a total capacityof only 57,742. The majority of those being held were undergoing trial andhad not been convicted.
Read Top Stories
Meanwhile, Pakistan suspended all international passenger for two weeks.”We are suspending international flight operations effective tonight at8:00 pm [local time],” Moeed Yusuf, a special assistant to the primeminister on national security, told journalists on March 21.
Earlier Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has urged citizens to strictlyfollow the policy of self-quarantine and social distancing to slow thespread of the coronavirus.
Addressing journalists in Islamabad on March 20, Khan said he was not infavor of a total lockdown of the country, saying it would affect poorpeople.
