prisons
There was complete chaos in the Flemish and Brussels prisons on Thursday morning. The guards remain in the refectory and refuse to work for the time being. Thousands of detainees must therefore remain in their cells.
An unprecedented situation on Thursday morning in several Belgian prisons. After a detainee was terribly tortured for days in Antwerp’s Begijnenstraat, an important meeting is planned today between the prison unions and Minister of Justice Paul Van Tigchelt (Open VLD).
But the prison staff is clearly dissatisfied with the plans that the minister wants to put on the table. “The minister only talks about the evaluation of the minimum services and that has gone down the wrong way with many people,” says Alain Blancke, national representative of ACV Prisons. “We also asked for measures to solve overpopulation and tackle the aggression problem, but apparently the minister mainly wants to put things in order.”
No food distribution
The staff is therefore not prepared for this, says the union. That is why an early call was made not to start work on Thursday. In several Flemish and Brussels prisons, staff will remain in the refectory for the time being pending the outcome of the consultation later in the morning. So the guards won’t be working there. It is expected that other prisons will follow.
The situation causes great chaos, because thousands of detainees have to stay in their cells and there is no food distribution for the time being. Prison staff have rarely played it so hard, according to prison sources. “No, nothing like that has happened yet. That’s right,” says Blancke.
It remains to be seen how things will continue in the prisons on Thursday morning and whether things will get even more out of hand. According to the ACV trade union, the intention is to return to work after the consultation. If the minister does not accommodate them sufficiently, a strike notice is very real.
