Cuban prisoners plan hunger strike to protest beatings

Read storyA detainee at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre will start a hunger strike today (Wednesday) after he was allegedly beaten so badly that he lost his fingernails.

It was one of many accusations made by inmates at the centre during an interview with The Tribune. Here are some of the most startling:

• People sleep on the floor and in bathrooms with old hole-filled blankets
  
• Inmates get so little to eat that some are willing to give sexual favours for food
  
• That American inmate Mathew Davenport - who set fire to a male dormitory at the centre - was beaten "senseless" when he climbed onto a roof to protest conditions. The next day he started the fire.
  
• That officers knocked out the teeth of a prisoner named Reginald and broke both his knees.
  

"Without hesitation I can say this is a concentration camp. Any human being walking through the door would be shocked. . . " according to a prisoner.

The protestors are asking Bahamians to donate diapers, baby formula and food.

Full Story in The Tribune here (Page A01)