violation of human rights
THE RIGHT TO BE TREATED WITH RESPECT AND DIGNITY

Life conditions in jails are established by the following classification: 1st grade, 2nd grade and 3rd grade.

1st grade: the prisoner has the possibility to have a walk between 2 and 4 hours in a small ground. Generally they have no access to activities such as school, gym,...

2nd grade: they can be at least 8 hours out of the cell, but they have restrictions on communication (mails and visits).

3rd Grade: it means to work out of the jail and to spend the night in jail.

The 1st grade is automatically applied to our relatives in the case of being preventive, according to the 10th article. As a proof we provide the following evidence:
In the Spanish State for every 100 common prisoners, there are less than two classified as 1st grades prisoners. In the case of our relatives 80 out of 100 are classified as 1st grade prisoners, that means more than 400. The rest is classified as 2nd grade prisoners.

Out of more than those 400 1st grade prisoners, more than 100 are held in isolated galleries and in violent life conditions: the isolation modules are not designed for people to remain in them for long periods of time, since the life condition there, is completely destructive. After being there long periods of time it's difficult not to suffer from psychological and sensitive distortions.

Cells are different to the common ones; windows are covered with metal sheet and holes in them, from which a little light goes through. These isolation modules are usually located inside the prison between the modules and on the ground floor near the walls, which makes it difficult to look further than 10/12 meters. The artificial light is controlled by the prison staff, since the switch is placed outside the cells. The entrance has a double door, the usual door and the one with bars. Inside the cell the chair can be attached to the floor, the desk is usually small and has no facilities (shelves,...). They have no more than three hours of prison ground. The law establishes that prisoners will go out in pairs (in many jails they take them out one by one). The prison ground is much smaller and it is covered with web, not to exchange things from ground to ground. So, the prisoner feels like in a cage. In these grounds they are not usually allowed to use anything but a tennis ball o something similar.

More than the architectural conditions, what it is really hard in this kind of module is the aggressive environment and the norms established. The security principle rules the running of the module. They suffer daily cell searches, body searches every time the prisoner leaves the cell, an strict position when being counted, which are more frequent than in an ordinary module. The number of permitted items in the cell are also restricted (two units of each item: two books, two magazines, two pair of trousers, two pair of shoes or running shoes, two shirts,...). The rest remains in a small warehouse under prison staff's supervision. They are just allowed to go to the prison shop twice a day and products such as food tins or shaving articles are prohibited for them. Prisoners do not have sweeps, mops or bleach, so they can only do the cleaning when the staff provides them with cleaning staff. Furthermore, theoretically, jails should have specific activities for these people, but in practice at the best those prisoners are allowed once or twice to the gym, and that's all. In some jails even the telephone booth and the visiting rooms are situated within the module.

To those violent measures, the dreadful loneliness, produced in these cells of isolation must be added: walk alone in the grounds, be alone in the cell for long hours, days, weeks and even long months. It is a situation which denies the word and the voice, unless the prisoner stands in front of the mirror and maintains a conversation with that reflected in it. Those moments become an obsession, with the need to listen to someone or something coming, to end up with that brutal silence. Actually, it is no more than those weekly forty minutes of visit (turning up in the visiting room wearing their best clothes, not to worry the family and to cause good impression) and the banging and the cry of pain caused by the staff pretending to be badly treating the prisoners, what breaks the violent silence. Our relative prisoners have been in this situation for ages. This circumstance can take them to irreversible situations.

To all this we must add the fact that during these first five weeks in 2006, there have already been two physical aggressions to four relative prisoners.