‘Mass indiscipline’ at Stanley Prison as 138 inmates stage hunger strike
Elite anti-riot guards called in to deal with protest in dining hall
Heavily armed anti-riot prison guards ended a hunger strike attempt by more than 130 inmates at one of Hong Kong’s highest security prisons as they occupied a dining hall to protest disciplinary actions against three fellow prisoners.
The Correctional Services Department said 138 male inmates from Stanley Prison’s leather products (shoe-making) workshop and carpentry workshop staged a hunger strike and refused to leave the dining hall at 6.30pm on Thursday.
They demanded the institutional management rescind any disciplinary action against three prisoners, who had been placed on disciplinary report on Thursday for unauthorised laundering of inmates’ uniforms.
The sanctions for the trio came as the prison undertook a series of operations against illicit activities, including disciplinary offences such as the unauthorised laundering of prisoners’ uniforms, in recent months.
After an assessment, the department deployed reinforcements to the 80-year-old prison on Tung Tau Wan Road, which could accommodate up to 1,500 convicts.
The department’s elite regional response team, which was set up in September and is regarded as an equivalent to the elite police Special Duties Unit, the “Flying Tiger Squad”, was called in, along with support teams and the dog unit.
A department spokesman said that after a warning, all the prisoners left the dining hall in batches in an “orderly” fashion, and correctional officers completed the lock-up procedure at 9.15pm on Thursday.
