The dehumanizing greyhound operations and raid by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine National Police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center is the latest of known rights violations against detainees at a detention facility known as the Alcatraz in Cebu. The lining up of detainees, all stripped naked, violates the Anti-Torture Law and all international instruments on torture, cruel or inhuman treatment. The reported involvement of the AFP and PNP in the said operations made it worse.
The dehumanizing greyhound operations and raid by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine National Police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center is the latest of known rights violations against detainees at a detention facility known as the Alcatraz in Cebu. The lining up of detainees, all stripped naked, violates the Anti-Torture Law and all international instruments on torture, cruel or inhuman treatment. The reported involvement of the AFP and PNP in the said operations made it worse.
Previously, many political prisoners were detained in the said facility. At many times, they were physically assaulted and placed in solitary confinement because they were organizing inmates to protest inhuman and repressive conditions in jail and to demand better jail conditions. The prisoners were also being forced by jail authorities to stage the "Dancing Inmates" act, to hide the various violations in the said prison facility and perhaps profit from the spectacle they created from the coercion of the inmates.
Greyhound operations in the guise of searching for illegal drugs and contraband inside jails in the Philippines have long been violative of human rights of detainees, including political prisoners. Greyhound operations in jails in Camp Bagong Diwa, for instance, have resulted to physical assault, torture and violation of rights of detainees under the Aquino presidency. These cases have been previously reported to the Commission on Human Rights, but these remain unheeded to this day.