I can well concur with Deepa's article on the human rights of prisoners in Mauritius. I did a number of training for prison officers in that country just over two years ago when Bill Duff from UK was appointed the commissioner for the prison services there. I was utterly appalled at the abysmal conditios of a lerge number of the prisoners as well as the widesprad corruption which I witnessed amongst the high ranking prison officers.

Mauritius likes to pride itself for being a country of example and good governance. However, first hand experience in witnessing human rights abuses in the prisons and outside amongst deprived communities tell a different story.

Hence, I was not at surprised when the lawyers interviewed by Deepa did not have a clue of human rights issue for prisoners. Many of the lawyers in practice there are never exposed to wider human rights issues. They are very much mundane on what they have to deal with and hardly ever have the motivation and willingness to be more than just being what they are paid to do. They remained at a flat learning curve for years and they themselves becoame institutionalised in their thinking.

I hope that your article on the issues of prisoners' rights will draw other comments from the Mauritian readers.

raj boyjoonauth (UK)