The guards at the Lisbon Prison (EPL) began a strike at 00:00 today until April and the National Union of Prison Guard Corps (SNCGP) promises to do everything to try to stop the closure of the prison.
In addition to the scheduled closure of the prison, the professional guards are demanding a pay rise, career progression, a mission allowance and conditions to make the profession more attractive and to improve security conditions, at a time when attacks on these professionals have taken place in Coimbra and Monsanto prisons.
Speaking to the Lusa news agency last Monday, SNCGP leader Frederico Morais criticized the government’s decision to close the EPL by 2026 – with the distribution of that prison population to other jails in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area – and directly targeted the still Minister of Justice, Catarina Sarmento e Castro, considering that she “didn’t even look at the safety of the populations where the inmates will be placed, nor of the guards or the inmates”.
Frederico Morais explained that last week he was presented with a project for the first phase of the closure of the EPL, which foresees the transfer of 200 prisoners to Tires, with 24 more guards.
The SNCGP leader stressed that there are between 116 and 120 prison guards in that prison and warned that this intention would leave less than a hundred guards to control more than 500 prisoners.
“The strike lasts until April, but there’s no deadline. It’s until there are serious answers and until they change the catastrophic closure of the EPL, because they can’t close a prison for the sake of closing it,” he said, expressing his opposition to the closure of the prison: “We really object to the closure of the EPL and even more to the way it’s being done.”
Pointing out that there are prison guards who have been in the profession for more than 20 years and who are still at the third level of their career, the union leader left a warning for the future government: the scheduling of negotiation meetings within a week of taking office.
The strike at the EPL, which affects all exits to the outside of the prison, began at 00:00 today and will continue, according to the SNCGP, until April.
This strike comes at a time when a prison guard was assaulted on Tuesday by an inmate at the high security prison in Monsanto, Lisbon, hitting him in the face with a sharp pen, and on Monday a guard at Coimbra prison had to receive hospital treatment after being punched in the head by an inmate.