Justice Minister Constantinos Fitiris was urged on Friday by the association for the protection of the rights of prisoners to take immediate action to address the situation at the central prison.

In a letter to the minister, the association’s president, Alexandros Clerides, called for “immediate, extraordinary, drastic and exceptional measures” to be implemented.

Warning that the situation was urgent, Clerides said emergency measures should be applied over the next six months to allow the Prisons Directorate the time needed to draft and implement a comprehensive prison policy.

“Every death in the central prison is a nullification of democracy itself,” he wrote.

In a statement by the association, it is stated that “the current situation is urgent” and should be declared as such and ” should be announced for the next six months, in order to allow the Prisons Directorate to draw up a proper prison policy.

The association stressed that the situation should be formally declared an emergency for the six-month period, underlining that there can be zero tolerance for the loss of life.

It also called for the presidential Christmas pardon to be applied horizontally, not only to those who would normally qualify, but more broadly, in order to reduce the prison population as much as possible.

In its letter, the association argued that the privilege of the Christmas pardon should extend beyond predefined exclusion categories. This, it said, would allow all prisoners to benefit from sentence reductions and potentially move to the next stage of their sentence.

It suggested that inmates currently under electronic monitoring could be released, those in open prisons could be placed under electronic monitoring, and prisoners in closed facilities could be transferred to open prisons, thereby easing overcrowding.

The association further called for the immediate deportation of foreign prisoners who wish to be transferred to their home countries, arguing that such measures should be carried out without further delays or bureaucratic obstacles as part of the emergency response.