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Friday May 19, 2006

Brazilian prisoners riot for right to watch World Cup matches

SAO PAULO: Brazilian prison inmates who have staged riots in recent days have demanded the right to watch World Cup football, press reports said Wednesday.

The First Capital Command (PCC) gang has staged deadly uprisings in several jails in Sao Paulo state, and staged attacks on police and other targets. About 150 people have been killed in the unrest since last Friday.

Imprisoned PCC leader Marcos Camacho, known as “Marcola”, “put on the table” the demand that his incarcerated followers wanted to watch the World Cup matches which start next month, the Estado de Sao Paulo daily quoted a prison officer who took part in the talks as saying.

Normally inmates in top security prisons are kept in strict isolation with no television.

A Sao Paulo state penitentiary official, Nagashi Furukawa, acknowledged that before the riots he had authorised 60 televisions, bought by the PCC, to be let into prisons. “There is no harm as long as there is no threat to security,” he told a press conference.

Police leaders have reacted angrily to the reports. Forty police were among the dead in the troubles.

“They say they (the prisoners) even received plasma screen televisions. The only plasma that I know is blood,” said an angry Sao Paulo city police commander Marco Antonio Desgualdo. – AFP

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