A human rights organization called on the Syrian and Lebanese governments to take urgent measures to end the suffering of Syrian detainees in Lebanon, where the number of detainees is estimated at about 2,000 people, including about 190 detainees for their participation in the Syrian revolution.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights reported in a statement that a number of Syrian detainees in Roumieh Prison in Lebanon announced that they would go on an open hunger strike starting February 11, 2025, in protest against the harsh conditions of their detention and demanding their deportation to Syria. This strike comes in the context of the continued deterioration of humanitarian conditions inside Lebanese prisons, where Syrian detainees face ongoing violations of their basic rights, in addition to their arbitrary detention for years without an official response to their demands.
SNHR said that it had obtained testimonies from detainees and their families confirming that many of those on hunger strike are suffering from serious health deterioration, despite receiving some treatment inside the prison. However, their health and humanitarian conditions remain extremely poor due to the harsh conditions of detention and the lack of adequate medical care.
The monitoring group added that the number of Syrian detainees in Lebanese prisons is estimated at around 2,000 people, including at least 190 detainees who were detained due to their participation in the popular movement demanding democracy in Syria, including defectors from the former regime forces and refugees. Despite years of detention, they have not been provided with fair trials, in the absence of legal guarantees that guarantee their basic rights.
SNHR stressed that Syrian detainees, especially in Roumieh prison, are exposed to inhumane detention conditions, including severe overcrowding, lack of health and food care, the spread of infectious diseases, in addition to being deprived of contact with their families. Many of them were subjected to unfair trials before Lebanese military courts or military investigative judges, based on confessions extracted from them under torture and threats, and were charged with terrorism based on these confessions, which led to the issuance of harsh prison sentences for long years, or keeping them in pretrial detention without specifying a clear period of time.
The statement indicated that Roumieh prison witnessed in recent years a series of protests and strikes carried out by Syrian detainees, demanding improved conditions of their detention or expediting their trials, but most of these movements did not receive any official response, which led to the deterioration of their conditions year after year.
In 2020, during the Corona pandemic, detainees demanded their release due to the spread of the virus inside the prison and the lack of medical care, which led to an increase in cases of infection among them. The years 2019 and 2022 also witnessed similar protests, the most prominent of which was the detainees’ objection to medical negligence, which led to the death of a number of them. In 2024, a number of detainees in Roumieh prison attempted suicide as a result of the sharp deterioration in their psychological conditions and their feelings of despair, in the absence of any serious solutions to their case. The statement explained that the extradition of Syrian detainees in Lebanon is subject to bilateral legal agreements between the two countries, most notably the Judicial Agreement of 1951, which regulates legal cooperation in the extradition of wanted persons and the implementation of judicial rulings.
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