Geneva prisoners protest conditions, refuse to return to cells

Police surrounded Geneva's main prison on Friday after some 40 prisoners refused to return to their cells from their daily walk, complaining about measures taken due to the COVID-19 epidemic, officials said. "There was a refusal to go back to their cells. At the end of the afternoon, the prisoners who were finishing their walk inside the prison refused to go back to their cells," said Laurent Forestier, spokesman for prisons in Geneva.

"Discussions are continuing and it's not over yet," he said. There has been one confirmed infection in the facility, Forestier said, adding that the person had been hospitalised.

French-language Swiss broadcaster RTS said on Twitter that police have surrounded the area. The chronically-overcrowded Champ-Dollon prison, located in the Geneva countryside, was built for 400 inmates but had some 600 last month, the daily Le Temps said.

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