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Safa speesh in the workshop Speesh of the Secretary-General of the KRC, Mohammed Safa, in the workshop under the title: the role of government and civil society in Lebanese prisons We welcome you to this workshop about the prisons of Lebanon: the role of government and civil society, and the launch of the book "Lebanon's prisons ticking bombs." Uprisings prisons and advocacy campaigns, moved the issue of prisons and put it on the agenda of the government and the parliament, and we have seen visits to the four ministers to Roumyeh prison , called the statements and promises of improved health conditions, social and judicial prisons, and acknowledged the existence of torture in interrogation centers. The issue of prisons has become inflamed the issue can no longer be ignored as was the case in past years, and the decision of the Parlament to reduce year imprisonment from one year to 9 months is a significant achievement but does not shorten the demands of the prisoners and their families and advocacy organizations. Overcrowding in prisons is increasing, the slow pace of trials, poor social conditions, health, random arrests Reserve, which threatens explosion of prisons and one by one. We look positively to the visits of Ministers of Health, Interior, Justice, Social Affairs and Human Rights Committee representative to Roumyeh prison, and undertaken on the status of prisoners, miserable, and highly appreciate the steps undertaken by the Directorate General of Internal Security Forces to form a committee to combat torture and the rules of behavior, and we welcome initiative of Interior Minister Marwan Charbel to secure bail for the release of prisoners to have served their sentences and do not have the amount that they have to pay. Important initiative, but, is not the ongoing detention of persons, and for several years despite the end of their sentences, is unjustly convicted of shortening the official in the treatment of such cases?. All of this is not enough and what is needed is a government project health, social, judicial and professional, integrated project, titles are: speed up the investigations and trials, and control the process of pre-trial detention, and to provide legal aid for detainees, and the strict punishment of perpetrators of torture, and to empty the prisons of drug abusers and the mentally ill, and to investigate in all deaths, and the organization of monthly visits for prosecutors, and training of law enforcement officers on human rights, and the development of alternative sanctions, and the development of social programs is a professional rehabilitation of the prisoner, and accelerate the formation of the national preventive mechanism to prevent torture, and adoption of the principle of amnesty annually with biography and good humanitarian cases, etc. ... Preassigned state and its various institutions Porsche repair and a comprehensive national emerge from a national conference called for by the Directorate General of Internal Security Forces or the Ministry of Justice or the Interior with the participation of all ministries and in collaboration with civil society groups, is the basis of treatment, in addition to the importance of individual initiatives. Prisoners are Lebanese citizens and from different nationalities, and the state is responsible for them and their care in prison and outside it, and also responsible for the respect for human dignity. The role of civil society, particularly organizations working in prisons, is an important part in alleviating the suffering of prisoners and their families, but this role is not a substitute for the state and its institutions concerned, but must be the work of these associations instigator of the state to carry out its duties, and demanding attention the situation of prisoners and the lifting of documented reports For their suffering, because Roumyeh prison uprisings and other prisons revealed some deficiencies in some association, which had to alert officials to the seriousness of the squalid conditions in Roumyeh prison and other prisons. We call for the positive cooperation between state institutions and organizations working in prisons, and call at the same time to bellow for a critique of each failure, and to organize meetings, and advocate for prisoners and their families. If this workshop and other workshops will be organized and conducted, is part of this collaboration which we hope will continue and develop. The book we are launching today, which is entitled: prisons Lebanon time bombs, it is a book containing documents and reports on the squalid conditions in prisons, and the names of patients, and the names of the deceased, and data, and reports that we sent to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations in Geneva. Book prisons Lebanon is a ticking time bomb alarm, if officials are quick to treatment and the development of a formal integrated project, the implementation of their promises, the flame will light up the prison again. 26 /3/2012 |