Administrative justice once again ordered the state on Thursday to improve the conditions of detention in the Toulouse-Seysses remand center, deemed “unworthy” and denounced by lawyers and the International Observatory prisons (OIP). The latter had estimated, at the end of July, that the 11 “urgent” measures ordered in October by the administrative court of Toulouse had been applied in a “partial” and “unsatisfactory” manner.
Ten months later, the court upheld three. Thus, the judge in chambers ordered the administration to restore the sanitary facilities of remand center for men no. 1 “within 15 days”. With regard to pests, and “after noting that rat control had been improved”, he ordered the “bimonthly distribution of cockroach traps, within eight days, in view of the findings made”.
Toilet paper in the ears
The court finally renewed the injunction made to the Ministers of Justice and Health to define, within two months, “a protocol for the coordination of emergency and specialized medical care”.
It also ordered the obligation to register “any request from detainees to benefit from emergency care (…) by issuing an acknowledgment of receipt”.
In July 2021, after a visit to Seysses, the prison controller Dominique Simonnot had described as “unworthy” the conditions of detention in this remand center of some 600 places, for more than 1,000 prisoners currently.
Regarding cockroaches, she noted that some inmates “put toilet paper in their ears to prevent these insects from entering them while they sleep.”