Prisoners must work ‘day and night’, says Magufuli

Tanzanian President John Magufuli has ordered that prisoners be made to work ‘day and night’, that conjugal visits be ended and that lazy inmates should be ‘kicked’, notes a report on the News24 site. The leader, who has come under fire from rights groups over his authoritarian leadership style and a crackdown on freedoms, was speaking at the inauguration of new prisons chief Faustine Martin Kasike. ‘It is a shame for the country to continue to feed prisoners. All the prisons have fields, inmates must cultivate them,’ he said. ‘Some prison staff don’t have homes. Make the prisoners work, let them make bricks day and night. If they show laziness, kick them. You have labourers, and for free,’ he added. Magufuli also criticised prison staff for allowing prisoners to receive conjugal visits. ‘A man is in prison, leaving his wife outside, and a prison official receives this woman and authorises the prisoner to do things he is not supposed to do during his detention. I don’t want to hear talk of that any more,’ he said.

Full Fin24 report