16 The second time he was released when alternative measures were ordered. His most recent incarceration was at the Tacumbú Prison. Because he had a criminal record, they planted marijuana on him to have him thrown in jail again. His case is moving very slowly. The witness has been marked and persecuted because he has a criminal record. Before his most recent imprisonment, he was working as a shoemaker; he did nothing to be in prison. He asked the Court for his freedom. b) Testimony of Osmar López Verón, former inmate at the Center The witness entered the Center for the fourth time in February 2000, and was placed in Cellblock 8. A record was kept of the inmates and the reason for their detention. He was 13 when he entered the Panchito López Center for the first time. At that time, the only inmates kept separately were the “chacariteños” (a neighborhood in Asunción). When he entered the Center, no physician ever gave him a check-up. The cellblock to which he was assigned housed between 30 and 35 inmates. The inmate population of the Center as a whole was between 250 and 300. The children washed the cells out with water, as there was no soap. The bathrooms had latrines without doors. They had showers with water. They sometimes had toilet paper. Inmates were not supplied with clothing or shoes. “If you were cold, you stayed cold.” When he came to the Center he saw sheets and blankets, but he was never given any. He slept with another inmate to stave off the cold. The food “was horrible”; it was almost always “beans with stew”. The inmates themselves did the cooking. There were no spoons and only 20 dirty plates for all the inmates. The inmates left their cellblock for around six hours a week, and every time they entered or left the cellblock, the guards “locked them down.” In other words, cellblocks were locked shut with a key. The witness went to school for three hours straight, from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., or from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. During the day he watched television and listened to the radio. But he didn’t work. The physician gave them an “all-terrain” pill; in other words, it was the same pill no matter what the complaint, whether it was a tooth ache or a headache. There was no dentist, no eye doctor, no psychiatrist. There were rapes at the Center, but never in the cellblock where the repeat offenders were housed, which is where he was. When a rape occurred, the directors examined the person who had been raped. Furthermore, there were 15 guards on shifts. There was no fighting among the inmates themselves. The disciplinary regime at the Center consisted of beatings and clubbings. The guards took the inmates to a cellar, where they hit them wherever they wanted and then returned them to the cellblock. He didn’t see a lockup, just a cellar. Also, no restraints like handcuffs, chains and shackles were used. “They just took them away by force.” The witness was at the Center when the first fire occurred on February 11, 2000. He didn’t have anything to do with that fire. An officer by the name of Cano, who came