Roberto comes from Spain where had to serve 18 years in prison, of which he did 14 years in the infamous FIES-isolation regime. During those long years he participated in hunger strikes, mutinies and riots and escape attempts. His rebellious character and unwillingness to settle resulted in a suffocating and isolated detention. After leaving he decided not to go back to the reality of the dungeons of the Spanish state. In Holland he is doing prison time for 4 years for a robbery.

Because Roberto has HIV he is very vulnerable for contagious diseases that can kill him. The hunger strike he has started, is a consequence of the unwillingness of the prison authorities and medical staff to give Roberto inspection in his medical files, in which there are the results of blood tests, medication prescriptions, doctors visits and medical status in general. Without these documents, Roberto nor his lawyer can take steps to demand a reasonable treatment. Instead of placing him in a comforting area for a person who is seriously ill, Roberto was punished with isolation.

According to the prison this is for his own good; to prevent him from hurting himself. He was placed under 24 hour camera observation, received no mail and was harassed by psychiatrists, to break his resistance. Also they left his food with him in his cell after he repeatedly refused to take it. This is a clear form of torture that is well known to the prison.

Above all, we can and will not forget how the PI Lelystad has almost let him die, due to a neglected stomach infection and pneumonia, earlier this year.

In Sevilla in Spain a group of 3 people has started a solidarity hunger strike in front of the Dutch consulate since Wednesday morning November 8th. They have spoke to the consul, and had telephone contact with the ambassador in Madrid to express their concern for Roberto.

In the night of November 8th, Roberto was being transferred to the penitentiary hospital in Scheveningen, because there was a turning point in his health situation, to which the prison finally came to a decision that he is a seriously ill man, who had not been eating or drinking in 15 days had to be brought to the hospital and his survival could no longer be guaranteed in the isolation cell. But when he comes back, the isolation awaits him for another 14 days, as a punishment for addressing his anger at the prison director.

In Scheveningen Roberto has started eating and drinking a little bit.

But he still needs our support. Roberto is ill and needs treatment in freedom from his family and beloved. Not imprisoned. He has spent a great deal of his life in the uncertainness of the prison world. Prison makes people sicker and will bury Roberto eventually, if we do not demand that he can spend his last bits of life remaining with his beloved ones.

Write to him in solidarity:

Roberto Belarmino Catrino Lopez
PEN Ziekenhuis Scheveningen
Pompstationweg 32
2597 JW
Schevenigen
Holland


The sick in the hospital, prisoners on the streets!