Brazil: mass escapes of detainees following anti-coronavirus measures

Military police soldiers on guard duty in front of a Manaus prison in Brazil (illustration image) .. REUTERS / Ueslei Marcelino

Text by: RFI Follow

Hundreds of prisoners escaped this Monday, March 16, from prison centers in the state of Sao Paulo, in south-eastern Brazil. And this after the authorities' decision to suspend temporary exits from their day parole regime to avoid the spread of the coronavirus.

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" Insubordination acts " were underway in at least four prisons using the semi-liberty regime, the Paulist state government announced on Monday. Authorities had decided to cancel the planned outing on Tuesday " because it involved more than 34,000 day parole detainees, and that, upon their return, there would be a great risk of introducing and spreading the coronavirus within of a vulnerable population ", explained the secretariat of the prison administration of the State of Sao Paulo, without being able to give the exact number of the fugitives.

" Hundreds "

Media, citing police sources, estimated that there were " hundreds ". These day parole prisoners have the right to leave their cell during the day to go to work or study, and can make up to five exits per year, each for seven days. Brazil, a country of 210 million inhabitants, has so far counted 234 cases of coronavirus, without deploring any deaths, including 152 in the State of Sao Paulo, the most populous in the country.

Bolsonaro supporters on the street despite the virus

The most unconditional supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro paraded on Sunday in the streets of the main cities of the country, accusing the courts and the Parliament of putting a stick in the wheels of the Brazilian leader. Some of these supporters wore masks with inscriptions such as " the virus is the garbage of Parliament ". In Rio de Janeiro, the authorities announced the closure of schools for seven days and that of theaters, concert halls and stadiums, for two weeks in response to the growing epidemic of the coronavirus.

( with AFP )

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