Daily Star - Rights Groups Urge Release Of Refugees

By The Daily Star

BEIRUT: Lebanon must release foreigners and refugees detained arbitrarily after completing their sentences, a group of 14 Lebanese and international human rights organizations have said in a letter to government officials.
The letter to President Michel Sleiman, Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar and Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud added that here is no legal basis for continuing to incarcerate most of the prisoners.
The letter comes just one day after a report by the Lebanese Center for Human Rights warned prisons were dangerously overcrowded because 66 percent of those detained are awaiting trial and 13 percent are detained arbitrarily beyond their sentence. Foreigners count for 100 percent of those held arbitrarily after completion of their sentences, with 81 percent of them having been convicted of illegal entry and/or stay, the report said.
An August 2009 report by Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces (ISF) also found that 13 percent of detainees in Lebanese jails were foreigners who had finished serving their sentences. At least 230 foreigners, including at least 13 known refugees, are currently in prison despite having completed their sentences.
Over the last two months, Lebanese courts issued four decisions saying that the continued detention of four Iraqis beyond their sentences was illegal as it was not based on a judicial or administrative decision. Despite the rulings, General Security, the security institution with jurisdiction over foreigners, has released only one of the four. “Lebanon’s judiciary has finally recognized that foreigners are being detained illegally after their sentences end,” the groups said.
“Now it’s up to the government to make sure its security service complies.”
Under current practice, when a foreign detainee completes their sentence, the ISF, instead of releasing them, refers their case to General Security, irrespective of whether the court has ruled that the person should be deported after the sentence ends. Many of these foreign detainees are then kept for months in an underground retention center before they are released or deported.
In their letter, the human rights groups said the current practice of automatically detaining foreigners when their sentences end had no legal basis and contradicts Article 8 of the Lebanese Constitution, which states that, “no one may be arrested, imprisoned, or kept in custody except in according to the provisions of the law.” Article 89 of the Penal Code also stipulates that in cases where the court orders the deportation of a foreigner, that person has 15 days to leave the country “by his or her own means.”
The only provision in Lebanese law that allows General Security to detain a person is if that individual represents a threat to national security or public security, the letter added. Only in such a case, Article 18 of the 1962 Law on Entry and Exit allows the director general of General Security to detain a foreigner administratively with the approval of the public prosecutor until his or her deportation.
The letter urges Baroud, who is currently responsible for prisons, to enforce the remaining three judicial decisions calling for the immediate release of the three Iraqis, Riyad Ali Hashem, Wissam al-Youssef, and Maytham al-Bay’i. The groups urged the Interior and Justice Ministries to form a joint committee to prepare a list of all foreigners who have finished serving their sentences and who remain in detention without legal basis, and to end their illegal detention.
In addition, the groups urged the government to reform its policy towards foreigners who enter the country illegally or overstay their residency by developing alternatives to detention that ensure their rights, dignity and well-being. Proposed alternatives include supervised release, regular reporting requirements, or posting bail.
It also called for the amendment to the 1962 Law Regulating the Entry and Stay of Foreigners in Lebanon and their Exit from the Country to exempt asylum seekers and refugees from penalties for being in the country illegally.
The groups that signed the letter are: Human Rights Watch, Action des Chretiens pour Abolir la Torture, Agir Ensemble pour les Droits de l’Homme, Al-Karama Foundation, Association Libanaise pour l’Education et la Formation, Euromediterranean Human Rights Network, Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l’Homme, Frontiers Ruwad Association, Khiam Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture, Lebanese Center for Human Rights, Middle East Council of Churches, Public Interest Advocacy Centre, Restart Center For Rehabilitation Of Victims Of Violence And Torture, and the World Organization Against Torture. – The Daily Star