Botswana should adopt Mandela Rules

Mmegi Editor | Tuesday May 26, 2015 12:49

According to a recent statement from Amnesty International, the Mandela Rules include extensive revisions and additions to the UN’s Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which date back to 1955.

It is expected, according to the statement, that the UN General Assembly will ultimately adopt the new rules later this year.

The new rules, according to Amnesty International, were named Mandela Rules to honour the legacy of former South African President Nelson Mandela who spent 27 years in jail as a political prisoner.  We welcome the adoption of these rules by the UN commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice as a step in the right direction towards ensuring the authorities respect the rights of prisoners around the world. 

From time immemorial basic rights of those incarcerated in prisons have not been respected.  The prisoners have been treated as second-class citizens with no rights whatsoever.

Prisoners have been subjected to severe punishment, torture, humiliation and starvation.  As a result of these treatment thousands of prisoners continue to lose their lives in detention every year. This cannot be accepted.

Mandela Rules are very clear, though the prisoners do not have full constitutional rights, there are after all human beings and as such should be treated accordingly.

Many states around the world find it difficult to stomach the fact that prisoners are human beings. Yes there are.  It is sad to note that in this era wrongdoers are often sentenced to custodial sentences with ‘hard labour’.  It is a welcome development that, Mandela Rules now contain an extended section of basic principles, including absolute prohibition of torture, and other cruel, inhuman ore degrading treatment or punishment.

We are now calling on the government of Botswana and other states around the world to carefully study these rules and to consider implementing them fully after their adoption at the upcoming UN General Assembly.

We agree that while it is necessary to imprison wrongdoers’ prisons should not be turned into torture and slaughterhouses for the prisoners.  Prisons should be used to rehabilitate and correct the wrongdoers.

Today’s thought

“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not

 be judged by how it treats its highest citizens,

but its lowest ones.”

 

– Nelson Mandela