© Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade

Internacional Conference – Prisons in Portugal and Europe: Regimes of Detention and Monitoring of Regimes

23 May 2019

Does it make sense to talk about the prison regime in a prison dedicated to the memory of the political prisons of the fascist state, now that everything has changed with the democratic regime?

In our opinion yes, at least in a sense. 

TODAY it is intolerable in any system the pratice of torture or mistreatment towards the prisoners to extract information – and yet we are constantly warned of police and judicial abuses in our country and throughout Europe.

TODAY it is almost incomprehensible the existence of long periods of pre-trial detention – as if police and judicial powers were incapable of obtaining information within a reasonable time – and yet the proceedings drag on for years, with very long preventive arrests.

TODAY we are divided on the reasons that keep young and adult prisoners convicted of petty crimes, such as petty thefts or petty drug trade, and yet these are the reasons that hold the overwhelming majority of the Portuguese prison population in prison.

If it is true that everything has changed with the dismantling of the dictatorship, it is also true that only everything will improve if we take care of the quality of our democracy.

The Colloquium continued on May 24 at the Faculty of Law of Lisbon – auditorium 7.

The exhibition will be open to the public at the Aljube Museum until September 29.

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