Prison feedback

Ministry of Interior officials said yesterday that Banteay Meanchey provincial prisons will place comment boxes at all incarceration sites to facilitate feedback from prisoners.

Kuy Bunson, deputy director of the ministry’s department of prisons, said the boxes aimed to provide prisoners with a mechanism to file comments or complaints about their living conditions.

“We will do this project nationwide with the cooperation of the Cambodia Criminal Justice Assistance Project.”

Phean Chorvan, acting director of Banteay Meanchey prison, said the comment boxes will be installed this month.

He added that prisoners would be free to write about any issues affecting them.

Soum Chankea, provincial coordinator for local rights group Adhoc, said the comment boxes are important for the prisoners because they are afraid of directly confronting prison officials.

“What I worry about is that the prison officials will mistreat them when they reveal their identity,” he said.