CHURCH AS PRISON

Hokitika Guardian, 9 February 1935, Page 6

CHURCH AS PRISON

SPANISH REVOLT AND AFTER

LONDON, February 5

The “Telegraph’s” Madrid correspondent says: In twelve mouths the occupants of Spain’s prisons have increased from 11,000 to 30,000. Just before the recent uprising took place there were 10,000 (prisoners under lock and key, and this number was duplicated almost over-night. Of the prisoners lately detained, 2900 were what are termed in Spain “governmeuta prisoners,” that is to say that they are held at the disposition of some authority without having been charged with any specific offence a procedure which i s possible in view of the non-existence of an equivalent of the “Habeas Corpus.”

The triplicating of the number of prisoners caused serious strain to the prison system. In Gijon during the revolt a church. belonging to the Jesuit Order was used as a prison for 600 persons. The lights of the high altar were used to illumine the temporary prison, and good deal of damage was inevitably done to the church before the ecclesiastical authorities intervened and had the statues and other sacred objects removed, and elemental provisions of a hygienic character installed.

In Bilbao, Barcelona, and other ports the surplus prisoners were placed on ships commandeered for the purpose. In the former port a serious accident nearly occurred on the occasion of a storm whe n a ship broke adrift from its moorings and only just missed crashing into the prison ship. In Barcelona the whole former cabinet of the Generalitat of Catalonia was confined aboard ship. The former Premier, Senor Azana, was for some weeks detained with another prisoner in a- small second class cabin of the Urngiiay. He wa s afterwards transferred to a destroyer, as a result of a protest made to the Government by prominent personalities.

It is proposed to open four concentration camps and to establish a penal colony on the Tsle of Annabon, off West Africa, in order to relieve the overcrowding.