A group of 30 prominent individuals currently serving prison terms, including WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Catalan separatist politicians, have appealed to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in a collective letter to describe the deplorable situation in their detention facilities amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), a pro-independence civil organization, said on Wednesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th April, 2020) A group of 30 prominent individuals currently serving prison terms, including WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Catalan separatist politicians, have appealed to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in a collective letter to describe the deplorable situation in their detention facilities amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), a pro-independence civil organization, said on Wednesday.
"Around thirty political prisoners from different territories around the world have sent a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, with the purpose of denouncing their situation of imprisonment during the Coronavirus crisis, after international institutions and organizations such as the Council of Europe, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch recommended reducing the population in prisons due to the high risk of spreading the disease," the organization said in a press release.
Quoting the letter, the ANC said its authors have expressed their concern that "many states are not complying with their recommendations" and that "keeping prisoners in detention during this pandemic carries a high risk for their lives and health," as put by Bachelet himself, especially given "the lack of hygiene, health resources and overcrowding in prisons and detention centers" in most of their countries.
The letter calls attention to danger associated not only with the risk of outbreaks, but also with the "repression against the protests that some prisoners have carried out in different detention centers," as quoted in the press release.
Listed among signatories were the Catalan political prisoners, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and activists imprisoned in Argentina, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Morocco and Western Sahara.
The ANC said two of its former presidents, Jordi Sanchez and Carme Forcadell, both sentenced to nine years in prison over involvement in the 2017 Catalan independence referendum, were also among the signatories.
Assange is currently in the Belmarsh high-security prison in the United Kingdom pending extradition to the United States on charges of espionage potentially punishable by a 175-year term.
