The legislative body restricted the rate at which parcels can be passed on to detainees to once a week. The prisoners will open the parcels in the presence of representatives of the penitentiary. Relevant changes to a number of laws were passed in the first reading, IPN reports.

Deputy Minister of Justice Nicolae Esanu said the penitentiaries must not be turned into eateries. In the future the detainees may be banned from receiving food products from relatives and friends.

Another amendment provides that the prisoners will be able to have a telephone conversation of at most 20 minutes with a relative or a person of their choice once a week.

The convicts will also have the right to ask to be transferred to another prison than that situated the closest to the place of residence or their domicile, as the law stipulates.

Liberal MP Valeriu Munteanu believes that this amendment is dangerous as the convicts will be able to choose penitentiaries where there are held friends or persons together with whom they committed offenses.

Deputy Minister of Justice Nicolae Esanu said that the conditions and methods of benefiting from this right will be specified in the second reading.

By the same changes, the prisoners are banned from playing cards and games of chance, from smoking and making tattoos and from using the Internet. According to Nicolae Esanu, the last provision is aimed at ensuring security as a detainee robbed Banca de Economii through the Internet.

The prisoners will be also able to do up to eight hours of community work a day, up from two hours at present.