Penitentiaries for Pigs

The League for the Renaissance of the Moral Standing” points out the absolutely inhuman conditions from the penitentiaries

He wanted to offer comfort to the convicts and obstacles were put in his way, he wanted to help them rehabilitate themselves both from a social and moral point of view and he was hindered in his plan. 40 days before the integration in the European Union, Pater Don Demidoff, the founder of the League for the Renaissance of the Moral Standing, describes the living conditions of the Romanian convicts; they are worse than the ones of the Western pigs.

Pater Don Demidoff, the founder of the League for the Renaissance of the Moral Standing

“I applied several didactic methods. I worked with groups of 50 convicts between 18 and 28 years old at a time. I started by asking them to propose anonymous discussion topics. One of them drew a penis. I asked who of them drew that. All of them started to laugh. One of the, who was standing before me provokingly admitted. I asked him to get closer, I reached out my hand, everyone was laughing. Then I drew him towards me, face to face, and told him that if he wanted to provoke me we would do something else there. Everyone shut up”, Pater Don Demidoff.

Pater Don Demidoff, founder of the League for the Moral Renaissance

This year, in February, Pater Don Demidoff started a series of charitable actions for the maximum security Codlea Penitentiary of Brasov County. He wanted to help those who have done wrong; he wanted to show them that things can be different, that their rehabilitation is desired and that somebody is thinking about them. In order to do this, for more than six months he has been fighting with a system which proves useful not regarding the rehabilitation of the wrongdoers, but regarding their annulment and rational persons which may be useful to society. Pater Don discovered this when he visited one of the children he once helped and who had been sent to jail. That child asked him to visit him and furthermore to talk to the other prisoners as well. Pater Don agreed with the former management to visit the convicts every Friday, to listen to their confessions and to talk to them. But the communism of the system defeated Don Demidoff’s good intentions.

Hindered confessions

“I started this action not out of proselytism. I have not and asked and I will not ask anyone to change their religion. I have tried to help the imprisoned with clothes, food, confessions, legal assistance. But the inhumane conditions in there hinder any such charitable action”, Pater Don Demidoff says.

The conditions he found there are hard to imagine. Ill, beaten and raped prisoners came in turn to see Don Demidoff. “A young man complained to me that he is moved from one cell to another on purpose in order to be raped. Even 20 - 30 times a day. There are thirty prisoners in a cell, they do not receive any bed linen, they do not receive any help if they get sick. It is said that their right to mail is ensured, but they cannot get any paper, envelopes, stamps and phone cards in prison”, Pater Don mentions.

Furthermore, the legal reasons for which the prisoners of the penitentiary got there do not seem to be supported. Pater Don talked with a lot of convicts, listened to them, studied their files, offered them legal assistance. “If you are poor or Romany you are condemned far more than any other civilian. You have no money to pay a lawyer, you automatically go to jail, where you are nobody, and you get to a military dictatorship. I knew a convict who should have been released on probation as he had served for six years. I hired a lawyer but he was not freed on probation. The reason: he did not work in prison. But those that have decided this did not take into account the fact that the respective convict suffered from hepatitis and could not work in prison. They also did not take into account the fact that he was not ensured the diet he should have followed. I bought him the drugs he needed and then I filed a suit to move him in a prison where he could receive the necessary medical care. We were told that Codlea had all necessary conditions. How could that be so if I was the one who had bought the drugs that he needed? I asked for a counter survey but received the same answer. No institution wants to admit the fact that the Romanian penitentiaries do not operate as they should”.

“It is incredible. During my 30 years of priesthood and confessions I have never seen anything similar. Some of the convicts came to me beaten up and ill, crying and saying that they would not go back to their cell, that they prefer solitary confinement. Nobody does anything for them. In there I met people who had been incarcerated for more than six years for stealing ROL 1 million. It is awful in there. Every time I left I cried. It is not possible for those in there to receive such treatment, irrespective of what they did outside”, Pater Don Demidoff

Pater Don fought against this system. He brought the convicts envelopes, paper and stamps. He brought them phone cards. He wanted to hear their confessions. But he was not offered the conditions to do all this. He was always searched at the entrance, harassed by the guards, hindered from listening the convicts’ confessions. He agreed upon a protocol with the penitentiary’s management. The protocol was not complied with. Pater Don gave up on being harassed by the guards and by the penitentiary’s management for wanting to help the convicts. “Once they go to prison, people have no more rights. Even priests are no longer allowed to get to them. Even I have been mistreated in there by masked agents. Counsels ex officio do not undertake any action unless they receive ROL 10 per convict. The penitentiary’s employees should also be trained.”

Annulled as persons

Pater Don Demidoff talks about the uselessness of a punishment system such as the Romanian one. He says that the convicts tell him that everywhere is the same. The guards treat them awfully everywhere. The attitude and atmosphere is similar to a military dictatorship one everywhere. Nobody has any rights, and if they are poor or Romany they are humiliated even more. “No private information is respected. I could not send parcels; they were sent back because I hadn’t mentioned the parents’ name and date of birth. The families of certain convicts, who are too poor to visit the incarcerated, asked me a photo of the latter. The employees of the penitentiary rejected such request with brutality”, Pater mentions. Nevertheless, for the financially powerful ones things are different in jail. Pater Don Demidoff received information about those that have money and that afford to receive, by means of the guards, cell phones, prostitutes or drugs.

The fight against the system

The former manager of Codlea penitentiary was open with Pater Don Demidoff. He tried to offer him a room for confessions and to facilitate his access to the convicts. But the protocol conclude with the former management was not complied with any longer. In the meantime a new manager was appointed for the penitentiary’s management. Everything fell through and afterwards the conclusion of a new protocol was attempted. Don Demidoff gave up on visiting the convicts because of the deaf fight with a closed and communist system. He decided to make the facts public. He described all that he had seen to the Minister of Justice, Monica Macovei: “The Romanian penitentiaries system creates hate, horror, contempt toward other persons, social isolation, bitterness, deformation of the human individuality substance and represents the incubator for other penal actions and a unique crime school which stigmatizes a former convict for life. (...) If through an amnesty the punishments for petty crimes (theft of up to 500 euros) were annulled, the number of convicts from the penitentiaries would be reduced by half and for the rest of the convicts a more humane situation could be created and, especially, a social system of strictness and reward would be created at an internal level”, he wrote, among others, in a memorandum to the Minister of Justice. He wrote to the penitentiary’s management, he sent letters to the European Commission. The answer of the Minister of Justice was incomplete and not in the least to the point.

The prisoners of the penitentiary continue to write to Don Demidoff with the help of the office supplies he offered to the convicts. They are asking for his help, they want to talk to him. Grown men cry in the Romanian penitentiaries which offer conditions worse than the ones of the pigs from Germany.
Ziarul de Sibiu

40 days before Romania's integration in Europe thousands of confined people are in decline in the penitentiaries of this country. Often 30 convicts in a cell, often 2 in one bed. In the Western Europe pigs benefit from better living conditions. “I have been a priest for the maximum security Codlea Penitentiary of Romania, then I gave in”, Pater Don Demidoff message to Europe.

In the prison of Codlea, even the toughest men cry.

The confinement from the penitentiaries is “supplemented” by humiliation, violence, degradation.

Letters to the convicts

“I have received a lot of letters from you during the last few weeks. Your spiritual needs, your miserable material situation, your lack of hope and the crass injustice worry me deeply. Too many of you have been suffering for way too long simply because they cannot afford a competent lawyer. This is revolting.

I have written a detailed letter to the Minister of Justice, Mrs. Macovei. In such conditions I cannot come to you at Codlea, because as a priest I do not have the rights and freedoms I have in an European penitentiary in which helping the convicts is concerned. The fact that my cassock and briefcase are searched at the gate of the penitentiary is so discriminatory that I begin to wonder if we priests have any value. I will obviously never breach the penitentiary rules. Many of you asked me for a cell phone, others made shameless claims which I have refused outright. And nevertheless I have tried to defend your rights. (...) I repeat, there are plenty of reasons for you to serve time. You have to beg your victims and God for forgiveness. But you have to do it with sincerity and honesty. (...) Some of you told me in your letters that you want to go on hunger strike in order for me to return. Please do not do this. It would be a sort of blackmail and we should never act in such way. (...) I am asking you wholeheartedly: pray, pray, pray”, letter of November 4th, 2006

“The confinement from Codlea is a case that should to be analyzed by the European Court for Human Rights from Strasbourg, by Amnesty International London and by the International Society for Human Rights from Frankfurt, but also and especially by High European Commissioner from Brussels. (...) I have always underlined the fact that any law violation must be punished by confinement if such may be the case. (...) The problem of the Romanian penitentiaries is that such confinement is not considered sufficient. The convicts must also be humiliated. And this is terrible”.
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