It is often forgotten that prisoners should be treated with dignity as human beings - this is especially true for the prisoners held in the Roumieh prison in Lebanon. This facility was built to house 1500 inmates but often 5500 people are hold here, 30-35 people in one cell, thousands of them are pre-trial detaines who do not see a judge for several years. In April 2011 an uprising broke out in the prison.
It is a dark time for harm reduction in Hungary: another life-saving service has fallen victim to political paranoia.
Under the guise of observations "in service of the residents”, uniformed men terrorize children and harass adults based on their ethnicity or national status in Magyarbánhegyes. According to this, it seems as if police did not defend locals against persecution. (The Civil Guard Association for a Better Future with other extremist anti-Roma groups – pretending to be militiamen and vindicating the right to maintain public order – have started a systematic campaign of intimidation against the Roma for weeks in Gyöngyöspata, Hungary in April 2011. They illegally patrolled the village and provoked the Roma adults and children.The HCLU published its Shadow Report and a documentary video about the events. The summary of the Shadow Report can be found here.
The 2012 budget for the public works program is 140-150 billion forints. Earlier we spoke with Vera Messing, researcher for both the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Institute for Sociology and Central European University, regarding the specifics and effects of the public works program.