Roumieh prison, outside of Beirut. (Credit: Marwan Assal)
BEIRUT — Tripoli MP Ashraf Rifi, a member of the Renewal bloc, tweeted Wednesday that Lebanon "will not be able to bypass the adoption of an amnesty law" to relieve prison overcrowding.
In August 2022, Rifi, who previously served as Justice Minister and director of the Internal Security Forces, submitted a bill to Parliament stipulating "exceptional amnesty" for certain crimes and advocating the reduction of the prison sentence year from nine to six months, among other measures.
"In Roumieh prison [the country's largest], as in other prisons and detention centers, it remains difficult to bring the accused to justice due to the logistical and financial difficulties suffered by the security agencies," Rifi tweeted on Wednesday.
"This catastrophe increases the risks in prisons, which are turning into time bombs," he continued.
Urging politicians to "find an immediate solution to this issue," Rifi added that the government "won't be able to bypass the adoption of an amnesty law before it's too late."
An Amnesty International report published in early June reported that deaths in prisons run by the Interior Ministry "almost doubled in 2022 compared to 2018," the year before the country's economic crisis began.
Prisoners' relatives have also denounced the spread of skin diseases among inmates, particularly at Roumieh, which are said to be "due to the quality of the water, which is dirty and polluted" and the "lack of care," according to some prisoners contacted by L'Orient-Le Jour.
Amnesty's report also noted that the real value of the Interior Ministry's budget for prison healthcare had fallen from $7.3 million in 2019 to around $628,000 in 2022, affecting in particular the supply of food for detainees.