Media Watch
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Prisoners to be tested for TB
All inmates entering Correctional Services facilities will in future be screened for tuberculosis, the SABC reported yesterday.TB ruling furthers prisoners’ rights
The Constitutional Court this week handed down a judgement hailed by the Treatment Action Campaign as "a major step forward" for the protection of prisoners' rights of access to healthcare and dignity.Ex-con wins in ConCourt
The Constitutional Court yesterday ruled that the Minister of Correctional Services can be sued for dereliction of duty after a former inmate contracted TB while incarcerated in Pollsmoor Prison.Nutrition aids ARVs
The Department of Correctional Services must be commended for dealing with the hostage drama at the Mangaung Maximum Prison in such a manner that there was no loss of life.TB in prisons in the public eye
This week The New Age drew attention to the lack of TB prevention measures in South Africa’s prisons through its coverage of Dudley Lee’s court case.
Although the main aim of the article was to report on the case itself, it has undoubtedly dragged the Department of Correctional Services’ failure to provide adequate health care to prisoners into public view.
According to the article, human rights violations and shocking conditions run on unchecked in South Africa’s prisons because they are institutions on the fringes of society.
Tuberculosis runs riot in Pollsmoor
The minister of correctional services has been taken to task in the Constitutional Court for repeatedly breaking the law and the sad state of health in the prisons this has created.Daily Sun sniffs out sidelined stories
The Daily Sun’s tabloid taste for the sagas in Average Joe’s life may mean it is able to sniff out stories better than its more highbrow counterparts.
Tuesday’s (21 August 2012) edition of the ‘people’s paper’ saw a prisoner’s account of corruption in Boksburg prison make frontpage news. The prisoner phoned the paper from the detention centre.
One of the allegations made by the man was that antiretroviral (ARV) drugs are withheld from HIV-positive prisoners and sold for cash.
TNA ticks all the boxes
A featured article in The New Age (TNA) uncovers the SA prisons system’s secret scourge. Choruses of assenting and dissenting voices, broaching all aspects of the matter allow for an informative and balanced article.
The article opens by recounting one young man witnessing the rape of another in a Durban prison. This ‘hook’ not only draws the reader in through holding off on the hard facts but humanises the prisoner, successfully bringing a society’s cast offs into the public consciousness as living breathing human beings who are capable of pity and fear.
Through the narrative device the article clearly communicates that male rape is wrong because it represents the violation of a living, breathing and feeling human being. But in providing the context of HIV, the writer shows that sexual assault in prisons gains an added dimension as a deadly biological threat which extends beyond prison walls.
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