Armenia’s government has promised a series of reforms aimed at addressing the country’s prison system, which has come under fire for poor conditions including overcrowding and bullying. Now campaigners are drawing attention to the standard of the food provided for inmates, which they say is unfit for human consumption.

A 2014 prison report by Armenia’s ombudsman, Karen Andreasyan, noted the presence of mice in refrigerated rooms usedto store perishable foodstuffs including meat, fish and butter. Other conditions were similarly unhygienic. In Yerevan’s Kentron prison, for instance, cabbage was stored in a garage where it had turned mouldy.

The ombudsman also reported a case in May 2014, in which about 20 inmates of the Abovyan prison suffered food poisoning. An internal investigation conducted by the justice ministry found that became ill as a result of eating tainted meat.

A system under which prisoners were supposed to taste food and rate it for quality wasopen to abuse, the report said.“For example, during a visit to a penitentiary hospital, [it was noted that] signatures regarding food tasting and quality monitoringwere delivered in advance, even before the lunch and dinner were cooked,” it read.

Tigran Arakelyan, a member of the opposition Armenian National Congress party,spent more than two years in Nubarashen prison on charges which supporters say were politically motivated(hehas since been arrested again on charges of extortion).

Arakelyan told IWPR that the food provided to inmates looked so nauseating that he was never able to try it.

“The soup, for instance, was the colour of mud, with two large pieces of cabbage and a few bits of blackened potato swimming in it,” he said.

During his time inside, Arakelyan continued, prisoners were not given any eggs, fish or milk. He estimated that only five per cent of the prison’s 1,400 inmates actually ate the food provided, while the rest relied on provisions brought in for them by relatives.

In response to such complaints, officials said that the food was adequate if not lavish, and that reforms were already underway.

In June 2015, the minister of justice signed an order regulating prison catering and quality standards. The order specifically requires that prisoners should be given a varied diet, and that weekly menus should be approved by senior prison officials including the head of the medical unit.

“Around the world, there is a problem with prison food that needs to be addressed, but I don’t think the situation is as bad as it’s being depicted, although I can’t say the meals are the same as home cooking,” deputy justice minister Suren Krmoyan told IWPR.

HaykuhiHarutyunyan, who chairs Protection of Rights Without Borders, an Armenian NGO, says the system needs management reforms as well as more transparency.

Shesays there is little competition among commercial food suppliers, and the low prices offered by the winning bidders are only possible because the quality is so poor.

A2013 report by the Control Chamber of Armenia, the state’s financial oversight body, noted that companies which won tenders for the supply of food and construction materials forthe penal system were registered in offshore zones, a fact that aroused suspicions of profiteering and mismanagement.

“Thepenal correction service deals with procurement details, while the justice ministry is only the supervisory authority. But it does not matter to us whether the company is registered in an offshore zone or not,”said Krmoyan, who is the ministry official responsible for prison reforms. “What matters is that the winning contractor supplies our products at the lowest price possible and meets our quality criteria. As long as the organisation has a permit to work in Armenia, it doesn't matter if it is  registered in foreign country or offshore, it is allowed to take part in the tender. The main goal is to ensure competitiveness. The problem would come if we bought products for higher prices or accept bad quality.”   

There have been concerns that the prison catering system suffers from corruption. The ombudsman's report, for instance, noted that far less food was actually prepared than prisons budgeted for.

In Kosh prison, for example, enough foodstuffs were provided to make 739 individual meals, but only 470 were actually prepared.

Krmoyansaid this was because only half of prisoners ate the food provided by the institution. It was preferable, he explained, to cook only for those who were willing to eat prison food so as to avoid waste.

Harutyunyan said that her organisation’s own research had uncovered a worrying lack of oversight.A yet-to-be-released report into conditions at the Abovyanwomen’s prison found that although inmates relied on bread as a staple, it was mostly inedible.Harutyunyan said this was because bread was delivered in a half-baked state so as to increase its weight, meaning that only the crust could be eaten.

“Our research has shown that only a small percentage of prison inmates enjoyed the food,” Harutyunyan said.

Krmoyan responded that any problems with the bread were due to conditions at the bakeries, which needed modernising.

“Our ultimate goal is to create conditions where most prisoners enjoy the meals provided,” he said. “If the quality was better, not only would it prevent food being wasted, but families from disadvantaged population groups wouldn’t need to spend money sending food to their loved ones.”

Nune Hovsepyan is a freelance journalist in Armenia.