NETHERLANDS: Voices echo around the magnificent, luminous dome of Breda prison, breaking the silence of the 130-year-old building, now empty of inmates like dozens of others in The Netherlands.
Falling crime rates over the last decade, as well as changing ideas about punishing criminals have robbed this penitentiary of its original purpose, and its gates clanged shut in 2014.
Built in 1886, it was possible to watch everything happening in the prison from its central courtyard under the main dome — a classic example of the 18th century social theory of Panopticism on passive behavior when people are constantly observed, first mooted by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham and later built upon by his French counterpart Michel Foucault.
Metal spiral staircases snake all around the dome down to the former canteen under the glass floor. Old sports areas are marked out on concrete, all are surrounded by cells stacked four storys high, their now-rusted doors swinging open.
Unlike the previous occupants, some 90 businesses hold the keys to the building, free to come and go at will.
Miguel de Waard, co-founder of the 3D Red Panda VR start-up, is among those who believe they have found a perfect office location, helping give new life to a protected national monument.
“We just instantly fell in love with this particular office: the high ceiling, the nice touches and the big windows and the lighting,” de Waard told AFP.
“We don’t see bars, I think, when we look outside, we just see a beautiful part of Breda.”
But he acknowledged the past has cast long shadows. “Every time we enter the dome or the women’s prison, it’s pretty dark, that’s true. And there’s a lot of history and sometimes you can feel it as well,” he said.
“The first time we were here and we had the keys, we were, like, wandering around at night in the dark and it’s a pretty amazing experience.”
There are now only 38 prisons still in operation in The Netherlands, with 27 closed since 2014.
Six were sold for about 20.7 million euros ($23 million), while others have been rented out, often as centers for asylum seekers, bringing in a total of around 18 million euros.
After leaping crime rates swelled Europe’s prison population in the 1990s, numbers in The Netherlands have dropped thanks, in part, to prevention programs and a greater focus on re-integration.
“Judges are sentencing people in different ways. Not more lightly, but differently, with community service, or ankle bracelets” and rehabilitation clinics, said Anneloes van Boxtel, who administers the interior ministry’s real estate.
Crimes fell some 26 percent between 2007 and 2015, according to the official Central Statistics Bureau.
In a decade, the number of people imprisoned every year in The Netherlands fell from 50,650 in 2005 to 37,790 in 2015. And the rate of incarceration stands at 57 prisoners per 100,000 residents, compared with 458 in the United States.
So the Dutch have sought to put their empty cells to good use.
A detention center in northern Veenhuizen has been rented out — guards included — to Norway to house its own inmates. A former women’s jail in northeastern Zwolle is now an award-winning restaurant.
With a 60-million-euro price tag, a penitentiary in Amsterdam Overamstel is to be transformed into a new residential district with thousands of homes. And a center in Haarlem, bought by the local municipality for 6.4 million euros, will open its doors in 2019 as a university college.
In Breda, the prison and its 33,302 square meters (358,330 square feet) of space was handed over to a special body in 2016 to be re-used for “social” projects.
“That was our biggest challenge: to open the prison again,” said Mandy Jak, communications and marketing adviser for the VPS association.
But interest has been huge, with some 300 people swiftly signing up to move in.
“It actually feels like not a prison any more. If you look around, it looks like a prison of course, but with all those start-ups, it’s got new energy,” she added.
However, one summer evening new “inmates” were spotted, as about 350 people were once again locked in, taking part in perhaps the ultimate “Prison Escape” adult adventure game that have become popular in many countries. Barricaded into the cells, participants have to plot an escape over three hours with the help of some 80 actors.
But once rid of these thrill-seekers, the building again sank into silence. Until the next business day.
Life behind bars gets new twist in empty Dutch prisons
Life behind bars gets new twist in empty Dutch prisons
In southeast Pakistan, Ramadan brings Hindus and Muslims closer
MITHI: Partab Shivani, a Hindu in Muslim-majority Pakistan, has fasted on and off during Ramadan for years, but this time is different as he practices abstinence for the entire holy month.
Every year, he and his friends in the southeastern city of Mithi arrange iftar, when Muslims break their daily fast, to foster peace and solidarity between the two religions.
“I believe we need to promote interfaith harmony. First, we are humans — religions came later,” Shivani, a 48-year-old social activist, told AFP, adding that he also reads the teachings of the Buddha.
“His message is about peace and ending war. Peace can spread through solidarity and by standing with one another. Distance only widens the gap between people,” he added.
Ninety-six percent of Pakistan’s 240 million people are Muslim. Just two percent are Hindu, most of them living in rural areas of Sindh province where Mithi is located.
In Mithi itself, most of the 60,000 inhabitants are Hindu.
Many of the city’s Hindus also observe Ramadan and iftar has become a social gathering where people from both faiths happily participate.
“This has been a wonderful tradition of ours for a very long time,” said Mir Muhammad Buledi, a 51-year-old Muslim friend who attended Shivani’s iftar gathering.
“It is a beautiful example of harmony between the two communities.”
Like brothers
Discrimination against minorities runs deep in Pakistan.
Following the end of British rule in South Asia in 1947, the subcontinent was partitioned into mainly Hindu India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.
That triggered widespread religious bloodshed in which hundreds of thousands were killed and millions displaced.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, freedom of religion or belief is under constant threat, with religiously motivated violence and discrimination increasing yearly.
State authorities, often using religious unrest for political gain, have failed to address the crisis, the independent non-profit says.
But such tensions are absent in Mithi.
“I am a Hindu but I keep all the fasts during this month,” said Sushil Malani, a local politician. “I feel happy standing with my Muslim brothers.
“We celebrate Eid together as well. This tradition in the region is very old.”
Restaurants and tea stalls are closed across Pakistan during Ramadan.
Ramesh Kumar, a 52-year-old Hindu man who sells sweets and savoury items outside a Muslim shrine, keeps his push cart covered and closed until iftar.
“There is no discrimination among us if someone is Muslim or Hindu. I have been seeing this since my childhood that we all live together like brothers,” he said.
Muslim shrine, Hindu caretaker
Locals say Mithi’s peaceful religious coexistence can be traced to its remote location, emerging from the sand dunes of the Tharparkar desert, which borders the modern Indian state of Rajasthan.
Cows — considered sacred in Hinduism — roam freely in Mithi city, as they do in neighboring India.
At two Sufi Muslim shrines in the middle of the city, Hindu families arrange meals, bringing fruit, meals and juices for their Muslim neighbors to break their fasts.
“We respect Muslims,” said Mohan Lal Malhi, a Hindu caretaker of one of the shrines.
Mohan said his parents and elders taught him to respect people regardless of religion or color, and the traditions pass from one generation to the next.
Local residents said both communities consider their social relationships more important than their religious identity.
“You will see a (Sikh) gurdwara, a mosque, and a shrine standing side by side here,” Mohan said. “The atmosphere of this area teaches humanity.”
