The United Nations headquarters in New York. (Credit: AFP/ Illustrative photo.)
BEIRUT — Several parliamentary groups and Lebanese Political Detainees in Syria association presented a petition to the United Nations on Monday, requesting that Lebanese detainees in Syrian prisons be included in a UN resolution adopted earlier this summer.
In June, the UN General Assembly established an "independent mechanism" to "clarify" the fate of thousands of people who have disappeared in Syria since the beginning of the civil war in 2011."
The resolution was adopted with 83 votes in favor, 11 against, and 62 abstentions, including Lebanon.
The resolution requests that light be shed on the fate of hundreds of disappeared individuals— for their release or, if they have died, for their remains to be returned to their families. It also calls for an investigation into the causes of their deaths and those responsible.
In their petition addressed to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, 44 Lebanese MPs and several dozen associations demanded that "the missing Lebanese be included within the competence of this independent mechanism."
The petition was presented during a press conference organized in Achrafieh, Beirut. Signatories included MPs from the Lebanese Forces, the Kataeb Party, the Democratic Gathering (aligned with Taymour Joumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party), the Renewal Movement (including MPs Michel Mouawad and Ashraf Rifi), and several independent MPs, including Paula Yaacoubian.
During the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990, around 17,000 people were abducted or went missing, according to human rights organizations. Some of the disappeared were allegedly arrested or captured by various forces and militias involved in the conflict — Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian, and Israeli.
