43 e) Testimony of Juan Antonio de la Vega Elorza, Jesuit priest and attorney The witness is currently chaplain at the Tacumbú National Penitentiary in Asunción. His concern is the spiritual life of the inmates, legal aid and their care. The building that housed the Center was a small, unfinished residence originally intended for a police chief who headed a specialized arm of the police force. The authorities’ explanation for the fact that the Center was in a building intended as a residence was to claim that it was just a temporary measure, until another, somewhat larger place could be found, one better suited to the inmates’ rehabilitation. The Center was in no way equipped for the rehabilitation of inmates. The young inmates had no place to go to relieve tension. All they had was a patio, so that they had to take turns playing sports. There were times when they were in lockdown for days, and were not allowed out at all, not even to walk in the patio. This is a violation of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. The Center had neither physicians nor medications. There was no standard for classifying inmates by age, or by convicted versus those awaiting or standing trial. Moreover, even though the law prescribes it, as a rule the inmates were never given medical, dental or psychological evaluations when they entered the facility. What few bathrooms there were at the Center were in terrible condition. The smell was extremely unpleasant because they did not have soap with which to bathe, the water was cold and they had no towels. Inmates did not have individual cells. The only “individual cell” –and even it wasn’t an individual cell- was the punishment cell, which was “a prison inside a prison, a horrible, frightening place.” He saw the punishment cell, which was in a basement. There, the inmates spent the entire day in darkness. In fact, one “Justice of the Court” ordered that the cell be shut down. However, the following day it was open again. There were rooms were 30 or 40 boys slept on bunk beds or on the floor. Because they were adolescents, at the peak of their sexuality, “the one who paid dearest was the youngest and the smallest”, as he was considered “a slave who had to submit to the one who chose him.” “It was heartbreaking to watch little children cry from the pain of having been raped three or four times the night before.” These violated children need psychological and psychiatric treatment to survive the trauma. The guards withdraw from the cellblocks at night, and one can do “whatever one wants” with complete impunity in these unguarded cellblocks. It is difficult for inmates to report any situation. There is a “rule of silence”: no one sees or hears anything; otherwise, they know they will be punished. The witness has seen and has heard from the inmates that the prison guards torture and abuse the inmates. Still, the inmates don’t want to name names. The guards sold drugs to the youth in the Center. The image of the guards is very bad; these are people who couldn’t find a job elsewhere. Most have not even completed their elementary education. They think that in order to win respect, they have to administered discipline by “the stick, nothing else.” The detention conditions at the Center were an indignity and utterly deplorable. “We are teaching them how to use their freedom, yet we put them in a place where freedom is not exercised at all; we are supposed to be educating them to be useful citizens tomorrow, yet we are allowing them to remain idle for three or four years, because they spend their days doing nothing.” This was re-education for a life of