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On Monday, the director of the Beirut Bar Association, Melhem Khalaf, warned of a “bomb” inside the Roumieh prison, the largest and most overcrowded Lebanese prison, after new infections with the Corona virus were registered.
At the end of the week, the Internal Security Forces announced that 22 injuries had been registered inside the prison near Beirut, 13 of them among prisoners and nine among security personnel. She said the wounded were taken to a stone building that was outfitted earlier inside the prison.
Khalaf said, speaking to Agence France-Presse, that “the virus inside the Roumieh prison is like a humanitarian bomb that no one can carry”, at a time when the prison is home to some four thousand prisoners, three times more than his capacity.
And a widely released videotape leaked from the prison showed a narrow corridor where several prisoners slept, regardless of any social distancing. In a narrow room, at least seven prisoners slept on mattresses on the floor next to each other.
Khalaf called on the Lebanese government to take “immediate measures”, such as “separating prisoners who show symptoms of symptoms from others”, noting the willingness of several societies to carry out virus detection controls, which “would alleviate anxiety and reassure to all the people”.
Lebanon’s prisons, in particular the Roumieh prison, generally suffer from a lack of basic services and hygienic conditions. Khalaf said that registering Covid-19 cases should be “an incentive to improve the quality of food and water, because we are talking about inappropriate prisons in which the value or dignity of a person is not taken into account.”
Khalaf stressed the importance of reducing prison overcrowding through several steps, “the fastest and most effective is the judiciary, which must, with all available judicial, legal and human means, allow the application of the laws and implement the release of liberty, except for the great heinous crimes and terrorism. “
He also called on the Minister of Justice of the interim government, Marie-Claude Negm, to present a request for a special pardon in specific cases, such as cases of illness, for example, or those whose sentences have expired, to the President of the Republic. , Michel Aoun, “who has the power to grant a special pardon.” That “would quickly reduce overcrowding.”
On Monday, dozens of families of Roumieh prisoners held a sit-in in front of the Beirut Palace of Justice, during which they demanded the issuance of a general amnesty law for their children, expressing their fear of the spread of the virus in prisons.
On Saturday, the interim government Health Minister Hamad Hassan announced that he will work with the interior and defense ministries to secure two hospitals in Bekaa and one in Beirut for prisoners and detainees.
The Corona infection count has seen a significant rise in recent weeks in Lebanon, especially after the terrible port explosion last month, raising fears about the health system’s ability to continue responding and absorbing the injured. .
As of Saturday night, the officially announced number of wounded reached 24,310, 241 of whom died.
