Prison

Greek authorities have suspended all transfers of prisoners between penitentiaries as part of broader efforts to curb the spread of the coronavirus and are considering the early release of those serving time for minor offenses in a bid to ease congestion and further lessen the chances of transmission. 

A US State Department report on human rights in Moldova in 2019 said the country was failing to investigate most allegations of mistreatment and torture.

The report issued on Wednesday said prosecutors only opened cases for about 10 per cent of reported allegations of torture and mistreatment in the first half of 2019.

Iran has temporarily released more than 54,000 prisoners in an attempt to combat the spread of new coronavirus infection in crowded prisons, the BBC reported.

Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili told reporters that the inmates were granted furlough after testing negative for Covid-19 and posting bail.

The general secretary for crime policy at the Citizens' Protection Ministry, Sofia Nikolaou, told a special House committee on Thursday that checks conducted at Greek prisons since the conservative government came to power in July have yielded hundreds of knives, makeshift weapons and mobile phones.

Increasing inspections at Greece's prisons, making the terms of furlough stricter, transferring dangerous criminals to facilities outside cities, relocating the capital's Korydallos Prison and introducing more programs to help inmates are all part of an ambitious prison reform program being overseen by the general secretary for crime policy at the Citizens' Protection Ministry, Sofia Nikolaou.<

A new bill to be tabled in Parliament in the coming days by the Citizens' Protection Ministry aims to tighten the regime for the transfer of prisoners to rural detention facilities, according to General Secretary for Anti-Crime Policy Sofia Nikolaou.
Nikolaou told Kathimerini that 200 inmates have escaped during transportation in the past four years.

An internal investigation by the Citizens' Protection Ministry has revealed serious cases of corruption and mismanagement by senior officials at Greek penitentiaries, Kathimerini has learned.

The Greek Police said on Tuesday that they had arrested the second out of four inmates who broke out of an agricultural prison at Tiryntha in the northern Peloponnese on August 28.
The 24-year-old foreign national was arrested near Omonia Square in central Athens on September 15, police said.

Officers of the Greek Police's anti-narcotics squad carried out a raid on the psychiatric unit of Attica's high-security Korydallos Prison in the early hours of Tuesday morning. 

The search, which was carried out with the prison guards, yielded an unspecified quantity of drugs along with makeshift knives. 

Security at prisons across the country has reportedly passed into the hands of the higher echelons of the Greek Police (ELAS).
According to reliable sources, a senior ELAS official, Major General Spyros Sklavos, was appointed to the leadership of the department tasked with the external security of prisons just a few days ago.