Meals for Muslim detainees during Ramadan. Letter to the Director General of the Prison Service
Date:
In correspondence with the Commissioner for Human Rights in 2017, the Central Board of the Prison Service approved the introduction of the practice of giving Islamic detainees hot meals in thermos flasks to protect them from cooling during the period of Ramadan, when these detainees abstain from eating before sunset on religious grounds.
While investigating this practice in the following years, the CHR was informed of valuable initiatives of the Prison Service, such as the development of internal regulations in all penitentiary units in the Koszalin district, which regulate the management of food in order to ensure that appropriate meals are served to prisoners who are followers of Islam.
Nevertheless, the Commissioner continues to receive complaints in this regard from detainees in various prison units in Poland. The CHR, acting as the National Torture Prevention Mechanism, has also recently received reports of meals not being served in thermos flasks to followers of Islam, as described in the preventive visit report.
Therefore, any remaining difficulties of the Prison Service concerning such an arrangement of serving meals that would enable Muslim detainees to consume warm food during their festive period remain in the Commissioner's area of interest.
On the first day of the month of Ramadan, the Deputy CHR Wojciech Brzozowski asked the Director General of the Prison Service to indicate what solutions have been adopted in this respect in penitentiary units in the country, whether all of them have been equipped with appropriate thermos flasks and, if not, what plans there are in this regard or what other measures have been implemented to realise the right of Muslim prisoners to receive a hot meal.
In response to the request to ensure that incarcerated practicing Muslims can have a warm meal after sunset during Ramadan, Col. Andrzej Pecka, Director General of the Prison Service, confirmed that every effort is being made to implement these rights appropriately.
Accordingly, prison units have been instructed to provide a hot meal, kept at the appropriate temperature in a thermal container, to persons who abstain from eating during the day for religious reasons, to ensure that it is available during the general dinner distribution, and to facilitate the proper storage of meals so that they can be consumed later in accordance with religious practices by providing designated inmates with thermal food containers. All prisons are equipped with appropriate thermal containers to maintain meals at the required temperature.
https://bip.brpo.gov.pl/pl/content/rpo-wiezienia-wyznawcy-islamu-ramadanu-posilki-sw
