Report on Prisoners' rights - Response to COVID-19 pandemic in North-East India
In the wake of the
COVID-19 pandemic, numerous measures have been taken across India by several
stakeholders to contain the spread of the disease in the community. A slew of
measures have been initiated by the judiciary in relation to prisons with the
objective of preventing an outbreak of the disease amongst prisoners.
The webinar on the response to COVID-19 pandemic in North-East India's prisons was conducted on 05.06.2020, and a follow up meeting was held on 02.07.2020. The specific issues pertaining to prisons in the North East were discussed, and how these can be addressed, in the light of the Supreme Court judgements was also discussed.
The webinar was organized to discuss the developments in the Northeast on
prisoners’ rights during the pandemic. In addition to being a knowledge-sharing
platform, the webinar was also meant to be a training and capacity building
exercise to forge a future path for strategic litigation in prison related
issues. The webinar was attended by members of SLIC and our
networking partners from six Northeastern states, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya,
Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim and also there were participants from Delhi.