PRISONERS SEW LIPS SHUT IN PRISON PROTEST

GUAYQUIL, Ecuador (AP) - Without a sound, Fanny Mejia let a fellow inmate
in an Ecuadorean prison sew her lips shut with a needle and thread
Wednesday to protest the nation's judicial system.

A few dots of blood emerged from her lips, which had been splashed with
disinfectant but not anaesthetized. Television cameras filmed the event in
Guayaquil's prison, but no doctors were present.

Mejia, a 51-year-old Columbian woman arrested for drug trafficking, became
the 16th prisoner in the last two weeks to sew her lips shut. The 10 men
and six women are protesting what they say is the slow pace and unfairness
of justice in Ecuador.

Some 50 prisoners are on a hunger strike in Quito and Guayaquil, Ecuador's
largest cities. They say they have spent more than a year in prison
awaiting trial, and under Ecuadorean law they should be freed.

Ecuador implemented constitutional reforms on Aug. 10. One change is that
the courts have one year after a person's arrest to start a trial. After
that, the prisoner must be released.

More than half the inmates in Ecuador's prisons - about 5,600 of 9,500 -
have served more than a year without being tried.

Ecuador's courts are reviewing cases to decide who should go free, but only
five inmates have been released so far.

Human rights groups have long protested that Ecuador's justice system is
too slow and that its prisons are badly overcrowded.

Checked-by: Pat Dolan