INMATES at Victoria Prison cannot have lavatories in their cells because installing plumbing would break heritage protection rules.
Two inmates are sometimes housed together in dimly-lit, cramped cells beside makeshift toilets, known as soi buckets, which are left unemptied throughout the day, a human rights watchdog has reported.
Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor and Human Rights Watch/Asia has called for Victoria Prison - the oldest operating prison in the Commonwealth - to be shut down and turned into a museum.
They say the plastic buckets are an archaic infringement of dignity, in breach of prison guidelines set by the United Nations.
Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor director Law Yuk-kai said: 'They are supposed to take the bucket inside before lock-up, along with their food. So you have the buckets and the meals in the same room.' Stanley Prison also uses buckets for toilets, but the Correctional Services Department has pledged to provide in-cell toilets for all at the territory's largest prison during renovations due for completion in December 1998.
In a recent report into jail conditions, Victoria Prison Superintendent Leung Kam-po said it was impossible to provide hygienic plumbing in the cells of 156-year-old Victoria Prison, because it entailed impermissible structural changes.