Roumieh prison at the end of 2020 housed almost 4,000 prisoners. (Credit: Marwan Assaf)
BEIRUT — Prisoners in Roumieh self-mutilated Friday to protest the poor conditions in which they live in, a video that circulated on social media showed.
Here’s what we know:
• "We call on the Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi, and President Michel Aoun and head of Parliament Nabih Berri to take our conditions into consideration," pleaded a prisoner in the video.
• The video shows one man threatening to hang himself and other prisoners bleeding and saying that they were not hospitalized despite having health problems. The prisoners also claimed that they were being mistreated by the guards, who would reportedly “confiscate their telephones and then sell them back to them at higher prices.”
• Roumieh, Lebanon's main prison located in Metn, housed nearly 4,000 inmates at the end of 2020, almost three times its capacity. Prisoners’ living conditions have worsened in view of the socio-economic and financial crises that have been affecting the country for more than two years.