CoE Report Slates Albania's 'Degrading' Psychiatric Prison

The Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture on Thursday again criticised the treatment of inmates in Albania's Zaharia prison for psychiatric patients near Kruja as "inhuman and degrading".

The only prison hospital for psychiatric patients in the country, the Communist-era facility has long been considered a major concern by human rights organizations due to its grim conditions and overcrowding. However, the government has no plans currently to build a new facility.

"The CPT expresses its serious concern that, despite specific recommendations repeatedly made since the 2000 visit, forensic psychiatric patients continued to be held at Zaharia Special Facility ... and the Prison Hospital in Tirana under conditions which, in the CPT's view, could easily be considered to be inhuman and degrading," the report said.

It added that "living conditions in both establishments had further deteriorated since the 2014 visit (in particular in terms of state of repair and overcrowding, with some patients being obliged to sleep on mattresses on the floor), and there was an almost total lack of heating and limited access to hot water".

Since the fall of Communism, when labour camps were a norm in the country's penitentiary system, Albania has struggled to build better facilities.

Thanks to donor money, several new prisons have been built and detention facilities were separated from proper prisons several years ago, a development that the Anti-Torture Committee welcomed in its 2017 report.

However, no plans have been developed to improve conditions for psychiatric patients and over the years, conditions at Zaharia seem to have further deteriorated.

"The CPT calls upon the Albanian authorities to provide without further...