Daily Star - Civil rights groups call for end to practice of torture - June 29,2010

Copyright (c) 2010 The Daily Star

Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Civil-rights groups call for end to practice of torture


By Simona Sikimic
Daily Star staff

BEIRUT: A collection of anti-torture and arbitrary detention civil society groups have joined forces in denouncing the continuation of torture and calling on the Government to eradicate the practice.
“We would like to call on the government of Lebanon to demonstrate their firm opposition to torture and other forms of ill-treatment,” read the joint statement issued Saturday. “To condemn these practices unreservedly and to make clear to all members of the security forces that torture and ill-treatment are not tolerated.”
The statement, endorsed by Amnesty International and six domestic NGOs, is timed to coincide with International Day for the Support of the Victims of Torture.
“In Lebanon, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment are still resorted to by state security officers and non-state actors,” the statement said.
“[Such acts are] condemned by the international community as an offence to human dignity and prohibited in all circumstances under international law.”
Lebanon ratified the UN Convention against Torture (CAT) in 2000 and the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention of Torture (OPCAT) in December 2008.
Under OPCAT guidelines, new signatories are given one-year to set up a National Preventative Mechanism (NPM), an independent body with the right to inspect detention centers without prior notification.
In June 2009 a committee was formed by Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar to propose the introduction of the NPM. Despite submitting a draft law to the minister in September it remains to be established.
As part of its CAT commitments, the government is also obliged to produce a state report detailing the situation in the country – a step it has thus far failed to take.
“This process is too slow and the state report should be issued at once,” said Darine al-Hage, director of civil rights group ALEF-Act for Human Rights, one of signatories.
Article 401 of the Lebanese Penal Code prohibits torture, stipulating that anyone who “severely beats someone with the desire to obtain a confession about a crime or information regarding it will be imprisoned from three months to three years.”
Human-rights groups, however, say the law is too vague.
“Even more appalling is the failure of the state to investigate reported cases, to protect victims and to prosecute perpetrators,” the anti-torture statement states.
“The fact is that there are various reported cases of torture but no perpetrators are brought to justice,” said Hage. “Reports of torture show us that it is easy to resort to violence.”