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SA flouts Mandela Rules

South Africa's leading role in securing the adoption of major prison reform proposals at the UN makes the violations in our own jails especially ignominious.

Unnatural deaths‚ public searching of people stripped naked‚ alleged torture‚ overcrowding‚ violence‚ and the seemingly out-of-control spread of tuberculosis all run counter to the new set of rules on the treatment of prisoners adopted on Friday by the UN's Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.

The reforms have been named the Mandela Rules.

The UN declared on Friday that Nelson Mandela International Day on July 18 will also be known as Mandela Prisoners' Rights Day to help raise awareness about the conditions in which prisoners are kept.

 

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