BEIRUT: Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud told activists protesting outside the Interior Ministry on Thursday over what they called the arbitrary detention of refugees in Lebanon that he had no say in the issue.
The nongovernmental organization IndyAct called for the protest and raised banners accusing the ministry and General Security of deporting refugees and detaining them in Lebanese prisons, even after their judicial sentences were completed.
They called for the resignation of Baroud, who came out of the building to confront the crowd. He explained that the Interior Ministry was not the authority responsible for the matter, since it was the role of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to grant illegal immigrants the status of refugees.
“Although Lebanon is not a country of refuge, the matter resides in the hands of the UNHCR, which allows the immigrants a three-month stay,” Baroud said.
He explained that the alleged arbitrary incarcerations fell under the jurisdiction of judicial authorities and not the Interior Ministry, General Security or the Internal Security Forces.
“I am not dealing with the refugee case with discrimination,” he added.
Activists also accused the ministry and security forces of mistreating refugees, citing the allged abuse and violence against a number of Sudanese nationals arrested in September for entering Lebanon illegally.
One activist spoke of Sudanese refugee Abdel Monem Ibrahim, who went on a hunger strike a week ago. Ibrahim is demanding the release of 17 Sudanese nationals in Lebanese jails who he says have completed their sentences but are still being detained illegally. Ibrahim was granted refugee status by the UNHCR in 2007.
Baroud said he has sent a representative to check up on Ibrahim. However, his remark was rejected by the activists, who claimed that Ibrahim had been mistreated and threatened by security forces.
The UNHCR estimates the number of Sudanese refugees in Lebanon to exceed 6,000 and says they escaped from Darfur following the end of their country’s civil war in 2005. According to the commissioner, the number of Iraqi refugees was the second highest after Palestinians in Lebanon – with 10,295 Iraqis – followed by Sudan and then Syria.
Baroud also commented on the refugee issue in an article published in the Arabic daily As-Safir on Friday. He said the Cabinet has presented LL200,000 to deport clandestine immigrants but the problem resided in immigrants refusing to leave.
He then noted that deportation measures still depended on the concerned embassies and regretted that the latter did not play a sufficient role due to a lack of financial resources.
As for the detention of refugees, he said it wasn’t possible to release those who did not have legal papers because they would get arrested again “by the first patrol they encounter.”
“The Lebanese law demands the arrest of foreigners who enter the country illegally. However, this is not related to the refugees registered at the UNHCR,” he said. “We are following up on the matter with the commissioner because the latter is the authority in charge of granting refugees permission to stay in Lebanon.”
Baroud then regretted holding a previous news conference explaining the
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