Prison workers protest after inmate attacks staff in Mas d'Enric's second incident in 2024

Hundreds of prison workers protested on Tuesday in Lleida, western Catalonia, to denounce a new aggression that a penitentiary worker of Mas d'Enric penitentiary center suffered. 

Even though the Mas d'Enric prison is in Tarragona, south of Barcelona, the worker who suffered the aggression is from Lleida. That is why workers from the Ponent prison located in the victim's town showed solidarity by protesting outside of the penitentiary center.  

The assault took place on Sunday July 21, when an inmate attacked a worker by dragging her, strangling her with a thread, and pulling out her hair.  

The justice ministry considers the incident an aggression, but the workers and protestors consider it an "attempted murder".

"If the thread had not miraculously broken, our colleague would have been strangled to death. We think the authorities are laughing at us," a prison worker told the Catalan News Agency.

Protestors also called for the resignation of sitting Catalan justice minister, Gemma Ubasart, and the Secretary of Penal Measures, Amand Calderó.  

This incident and protest come only four months after the murder of a prison worker at the same center.