Hong Kong heatwave prompts calls for cooler prisons, but lawmakers draw line at air conditioning for inmates
- Former lawmaker Emily Lau says with climate change, authorities must help prisoners stay cool and well
- Prison authorities say they have added fans and begun improving ventilation, among various measures
Ever-rising temperatures in Hong Kong have prompted calls for better ventilation in the city’s prisons, but activists and lawmakers remained divided over providing inmates air conditioning.
Former Democratic Party lawmaker Emily Lau Wai-hing and opposition activist Raphael Wong Ho-ming urged the Correctional Services Department last week to improve ventilation and cooling arrangements in prisons as Hong Kong would only get hotter with climate change.
Lau also suggested installing air conditioners, an idea shot down by former security chief Lai Tung-kwok, who told the Post: “Prisons don’t have air conditioners. That’s common sense and our common understanding.”
But Lau, a justice of the peace who visited prisons regularly to check on conditions and collect complaints lodged by inmates, explained her concerns about the heat saying: “This isn’t about relaxation, but human rights – the right to live and the right to health.”
She said she did not suggest air conditioning in the past when it was not so hot, but the weather was becoming extremely hot now and some inmates described being damp with perspiration all day.