The president of the Cabildo of Fuerteventura, Mario Cabrera, considered this Monday that the announcement of the Ministry of the Interior about the [construction of a new penitentiary center->http://www.lavozdelanzarote.com/article.php3?id_article=3536] in Fuerteventura lands "does not obey at all to a demand from the island of Fuertevetura" but, simply and plainly, to the fact that there is "a problem with the penitentiary facilities of Gran Canaria and Tenerife".
According to Mario Cabrera, this debate arises today to solve the problem "in the island that has the most space and the least inhabited, but mainly as a result of the attempt to solve the conflict of Gran Canaria", which is currently being resolved in the possibility of creating a second center in La Isleta in the face of overcrowding at Salto del Negro.
Neither the moment nor the forms
The leader of Coalición Canaria recalled that from the beginning the initiative has been rejected by all the institutions of Fuerteventura. The Cabildo has already conveyed to the Ministry its refusal to the idea of establishing a prison on the Island "at this time, and much less as they have done, without counting on anyone."
According to Cabrera, "in the Island Territorial Planning Plan we already contemplated the possibility of installing a prison, but at the moment when there is demand for it." And it is that according to data from the General Directorate of Penitentiary Institutions itself, there are only twenty prisoners originating from Fuerteventura and who are distributed in the prisons of Gran Canaria and Lanzarote. "The rest that leaves the Island are all patera skippers and other foreigners," he added.
"Fed up"
The fear of the majorero president is preceded by a similar case that occurred with the Foreigners Internment Center (CIE) of El Matorral. "We are already fed up with what always happens to us, that in the end this will become the penitentiary center that will solve the problems that other islands have at the moment, and that are not precisely Fuerteventura".
Cabrera also referred to the possible decongestion that could occur in the case of the [preventive center of Tahíche, which will be expanded soon->http://www.lavozdelanzarote.com/article.php3?id_article=2457&var_recherche=Tah%EDche]. "I don't think any problem will be solved for Tahíche, because half of the twenty majorero prisoners are in Gran Canaria," he insisted.
"Although we don't want them to continue in Lanzarote, perhaps the possible approach to their native land is the only positive aspect" of the Interior announcement.
"Real" demands
For Cabrera, the State does not fulfill a series of demands for the Island that are not being met. Among them, the problems with communications, water, immigration, educational policy or the juvenile center that does not meet the security measures required by Europe.
