He was deprived of glasses for several months.

Tsukigata prison in northern Japan banned an inmate from wearing his half-rimmed eyeglasses – with a silver bar on top and no visible frames underneath – while serving his sentence, it said. the Sapporo Bar Association which protested the establishment.

The reason ?

The object gave the man "a threatening look" which risked "intimidating" other prisoners and "triggering unruly behavior such as fighting and bullying", added this group of lawyers who called the decision of human rights violations.

A prison official defended this measure.

“We believe there is nothing illegal or unfair in the way we have handled the situation,” he said.

The inmate reportedly suffered "severe headaches"

The prisoner, a man in his 40s who has since been released, lived without glasses for months while serving his sentence for a traffic violation, according to the lawyers' official protest filed in June .

His eyesight was so bad that he ended up “bumping into other inmates” and he also suffered from “severe headaches”.

Sapporo Bar Vice President Ayako Ito said this week that for people with limited eyesight, glasses can be likened to "a part of the body".

"For example, prisoners have the right to spend their days reading, but being deprived of glasses makes it difficult, which violates their rights to maintain a minimum level of culture", guaranteed by the Japanese Constitution, did she say.

Tsukigata prison had already been called to order by the same association of lawyers in 2020 after having rejected the request of another prisoner to use his own Bvlgari glasses which he considered "too ostentatious".

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