All detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch said security forces at the prison resorted first to the use of firearms, including automatic weapons, after discussions on ending the hunger strike broke down, before using tear gas as a secondary measure.
One detainee told Human Rights Watch how the negotiations broke down around 4 p.m. and arguments began between the protesters and guards. “This led to heated shouting matches and ultimately one guard opened fire on us with a Kalashnikov,” he said. “I saw one inmate hit the ground after being shot in the thigh. He was bleeding profusely.”
The detainee said the shooting sparked other prisoners to break down cell doors and set fire to mattresses. The guards responded by opening fire with automatic weapons over the next four hours, at times directly at prisoners, he and other detainees said.
Senior officials of al-Roueimy prison gave Human Rights Watch a different version of events. Acting prison director Ali al-Saadi and former director Haitham Beitelmal said they had faced a “mutiny” by around 150 inmates, which spread to all sections of the prison. They said guards at first used tear gas and then fired only rubber bullets over prisoners’ heads “to scare them”. They said four prison officers sustained minor injuries and that prison authorities had launched an internal investigation into the events.
On August 26, the spokesperson for the judicial police, which runs justice ministry prisons, told a press conference that security forces had quelled the prisoners’ protest “peacefully.” He said security forces had used only nonlethal means, including “smoke bombs, water cannons and tear gas,” and had caused no casualties. “Not a single shot was fired at the protesters,” he said, while suggesting that most prisoners’ injuries were due to a “stampede.”
Minister of Justice Salah al-Marghani acknowledged to Human Rights Watch on August 31 that authorities had been slow to address weaknesses in prison security and that untrained and improperly equipped guards may have contributed to the escalation of violence. “We were slower than we should have been in providing nonlethal weapons to the prison authorities,” he said.
Eight of the 20 detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch sustained bullet wounds in their arms or legs, including two from whom the bullets were yet to be extracted. At least 19 inmates had injuries that they said were caused by shrapnel from ricocheting gunfire, which was confirmed by the clinic sources, suggesting arbitrary shooting of live ammunition by guards into areas occupied by detainees. Most had sustained injuries to their legs or arms, although one received a head wound.
