Los Angeles: Conditions in Lebanon’s Roumieh prision were supposed to have improved after repeated riots left scores dead and many wounded.
A few months ago, Interior Minister Nouhad Al Mashnouq pledged several million dollars to refurbish the notorious jail where some prisoners lingered for over a decade awaiting trial.
The bombshell in the form of videos showing Internal Security Forces (ISF) guards abusing and torturing inmates, added insult to injury, especially when these were not the first images that depicted acts of violence at the hands of law enforcement authorities. As in the past, pledges were made to investigate atrocities, without any follow-up.
On Monday, two Lebanese prison guards were being questioned over the videos, state prosecutor Samir Hammoud said.
In one of the videos, a prisoner stripped to his underwear is shown lying on a floor covered with water, his hands tied behind his back.
The detainee is asked between beatings what he is accused of, and replies: “transporting terrorists.”
The same detainee is told to kiss another guard’s boot while he is on the floor.
In another video, around a dozen prisoners, also stripped to their underwear with their hands tied, are shown seated on the ground with guards beating at least two of them.
On Sunday, Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi described the conduct as a “crime at the national and humanitarian levels,” and reemphasised that Beirut would “continue the investigations until the end [since] this crime cannot go unpunished.”
According to Rifi, the former ISF Commander, five of the perpetrators were already detained, which was confirmed by State Prosecutor Samir Hammoud who clarified that “two ISF members who tortured a detainee at the Roumieh prison were being interrogated.”
Mashnouq’s press office issued a statement that claimed the videos were filmed “during the latest riot and raid at Roumieh prison’s Block D,” several months ago and were not a new episode. At a time, nearly 900 inmates were moved from Block B to Block D, which was supposed to be a panacea.
Still, calls for speedy investigations, tough penalties, and recourse to legal measures were nothing new in Lebanon. Previous promises came to naught as the humanitarian rights of inmates — mostly Islamist extremists—were casually ignored. When videos of torture emerged in June 2013 that showed Lebanese army (LAF) units severely beating up [using their boots to kick into the heads of shackled prisoners, for example members of the cell that followed the fugitive Shaikh Ahmad Al Asir in Abra near Sidon, similar calls were heard, even if soldiers were probably exacting revenge on 18 comrades that died in those skirmishes. Nothing more was heard of those videos or whether any of the LAF soldiers who were chanting sectarian slogans were even prosecuted.
Mashnouq took full responsibility for the mistakes that occurred during the raids at the Roumieh prison in January 2015, which allegedly resulted in nasty consequences, though he stressed on Sunday that “it was unacceptable to condemn the ISF institution and the heroes who rescued Roumieh’s Block B.”
He added: “We have always deplored the abuses and torture that take place in Syrian prisons and I won’t tolerate similar acts in Lebanese prisons.”
Whether his avowal that “these are not the only servicemen who have committed abuses,” helped his cause was unclear. Suffice it to say that the minister acknowledged that four servicemen were prosecuted in the past and that Lebanon was the only Arab state that prosecuted “members of the armed forces before the judiciary.”
Amidst a sustained public outcry, government and opposition leaders condemned what happened, stressing the need to hold accountable all those involved in such inhumane acts.
Former Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri, ostensibly aligned with ministers Rifi and Mashnouq, called for calm as authorities investigate the video recordings.
Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Junblatt was less casual as he compared the footage leaked from Roumieh to “a scene from one of the Syrian prisons.”
“This is shameful,” Junblatt hammered, as he called on “perpetrators to be penalized.” He also urged for “speeding up the trials of the Islamists and finalizing this issue” that, sadly, lingered for over a decade.
— With inputs from DPA
