Prisoners Strike To Get Back TV Channel

An inmate strike at a medium-security prison in Sweden ended peacefully after authorities agreed to restore a popular cable channel, a corrections official said Thursday.

About 50 of the 66 inmates at the Mariestad prison, 150 miles southwest of Stockholm, refused to enter their cells at bedtime Monday. They were upset that the prison lost the signal to Kanal 5, a Swedish channel carried on cable or satellite, regional corrections chief Uno Rodin said.

A spokesman for Kanal 5 said the prison a week earlier had failed to adjust its receiver when the signal switched from one satellite to another.

Riot police were called in, but the five-hour protest ended peacefully after prison officials convinced the inmates to return to their cells. The strike continued Tuesday, when 28 inmates refused to go to work, Rodin said.

Kanal 5 spokesman Carl Fredrik Mannerberg heard about the conflict and sent a technician to Mariestad to adjust the receiver.

The signal was restored and all the inmates went back to work.

"All our viewers are tremendously important," Mannerberg said. "It's not that easy for an inmate to go adjust the receiver himself. It was important for me to do this civic service ahead of Christmas."

Kanal 5 is distributed to 2.4 million households in Sweden. Programs include the American show "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "Fraaga Olle," or "Ask Olle," a Swedish show which features a sex expert taking calls from viewers.

Four inmates will be moved from the prison for their role in the strike, Rodin said.

Rainer Bahlstroem, 48, imprisoned for drug and illegal driving convictions, refused to take part in the protest, saying it was organized by a group of "whippersnappers who didn't know what they were doing."

"I went to bed because I thought it was childish," Bahlstroem said in a phone interview from the prison. "I don't watch Kanal 5. There are four other channels, that's enough."