Execution-style murders of prison guards in Brazil’s Sao Paulo state over the past week have led to strikes by frightened guards and deteriorating conditions for many inmates, officials said on Thursday.
A spokesman for the state penitentiary administration said guards in 21 prisons in Brazil’s wealthiest state went on strike to protest the killings. They also demand hiring more people to work in prison security and permission to bear arms off duty.
Justice Minister Marcio Thomaz Bastos promised on Thursday a decree allowing gun permits for the guards soon.
The killing of four off-duty guards, attempts to assassinate two others and the murder of one guard inside a prison during a breakout attempt in the past seven days are an echo of mid-May’s wave of violence in the state, which killed about 200 people.
Authorities believe the same criminal organization which unleashed the bloodshed in May from behind prison bars in retaliation for the transfer of kingpins to remote prisons is flexing its muscles and killing guards again.
In the early hours on Thursday, several unidentified attackers opened fire on a prison guard returning home in the city of Sao Paulo. He is in a hospital in a serious condition with eight bullet wounds.
One guard was shot dead on Thursday night just outside the prison where he worked when six armed inmates escaped.
Welding the doors shut
In Araraquara prison, seriously damaged in last month’s riot, about 1,600 inmates have been crammed for days into just one cell block out of four, built for only 160 inmates.
Guards have abandoned the prison, welding the doors shut. Food is thrown to inmates across the prison wall.
Aton Fon, director and lawyer at the Social Network of Justice and Human Rights, said the situation was complicated and had no immediate solution.
“On one hand, the rights of the prisoners have to be respected, but the authorities cannot demand that the guards come back to work to face this situation of extermination. ...
“We are demanding that the public authorities defend prison guards, but the right to bear arms cannot be the only response. There have to be other, tougher measures to guarantee their security and to have the situation return to normal,” he said.