"It is the prison with the most complaints for mistreatment": entities alert the Pope before the visit to Brians

BarcelonaOne of the Pope's stops in Catalonia will be at Brians 1 prison, in Sant Esteve Sesrovires. With a little more than a week to go before the visit, a group of 14 human rights defense entities has written a letter to Leo XIV warning him of the state of the Catalan prison system, which they say "shows signs of clear regression". Regarding Brians 1 specifically, they add that in recent years it is the prison "that has received the most complaints for alleged mistreatment, isolation practices, mechanical restraints, and also suicides, which are often a consequence of them".

"It may seem apparently very advanced and surely it is if you compare it with prisons you have visited recently or throughout your life. In reality, it is far from the objectives set by both the general prison law and other provisions and regulations, and it shows signs of clear regression, unbecoming of a developed Western society," says the letter signed by Xarxa Dret i Presó, which El País has advanced and ARA has consulted. The 14 entities that are part of this network also emphasize that in the first four months of this year, five people have committed suicide in Catalan prisons "and others have died in circumstances not yet clarified".

The entities assure that the prison system "does not comply with international protocols" such as the European Convention against Torture, the Nelson Mandela Rules, the Istanbul Protocol, and the Minnesota Protocol. They also recall that the Committee for the Prevention of Torture of the Council of Europe has issued "alarming warnings" to the Government

about "the lethal cycle" of deterioration of mental health, measures such as solitary confinement, and the abusive use of mechanical restraints.

Although the majority of inmates in Brians are men awaiting trial, there are also some convicted women. The letter to the Pope specifies that women make up less than 6% of incarcerated individuals. Since Catalonia only has one specific prison for women – Wad-Ras, in Barcelona – in other centers like Brians they are all together, regardless of the crime for which they have been convicted. They warn that this leads to limitations, for example, in the offering of educational activities, workshops, and vocational training exclusively for women, and that the fact that there are so few modules for women means that "very diverse criminal profiles are mixed, which affects access to treatments, permits, and prison benefits".