Sir, A serving prisoner at Albany Prison in the Isle of Wight condemns fellow inmates for their “constant bleating” about human rights (report, Sept 11), but there are wider issues here.
Anne Owers, Chief Inspector of Prisons, interviewed in the New Statesman on June 5, said: “I should not, in 2006, be inspecting prisons where menstruating women have to slop out, or where exercise in a high-security prison has to be cancelled because of the parcels of excrement prisoners have thrown from their windows because they can’t get out of their cells at night to go to the toilet.”
Breaches of the Human Rights Act 1998 should not be tolerated in these “closed” institutions. The absolute nature of Article 3 requires that no one should be exposed to inhumane or degrading treatment.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton, Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, has said the Government remains “fully committed” to the European Convention on Human Rights. Prisons are not exempt from it.
A basic tenet of humanity is the understanding that everybody is of equal worth and deserves equal respect — including prisoners.
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PAULINE CAMPBELL
Malpas, Cheshire