The Daily Star - Roumieh prisoners start hunger strike to demand reforms - May 05, 2011

By Simona Sikimic

The Daily Star

BEIRUT: Roumieh Prison inmates began a hunger strike Wednesday in protest against the failure to implement promised reforms. Some 200 prisoners from all blocks of the maximum security prison are now thought to be participating in the “open-ended” protest, Ali Akil Khalil, ambassador to Lebanon of the International Human Rights Organization, told The Daily Star. Khalil, who acts as a spokesperson for inmates and their families, said the move was in response to poor prison conditions, which have not improved since large-scale rioting broke out in Roumieh in early April, leaving four inmates dead and several Internal Security Forces officers injured. “The situation is much worse than before the riots,” prisoner Ibrahim Salim told The Daily Star by telephone. “If we die, so what, in the prison we have nothing left to lose anymore. “Security has deteriorated and there are a lot of knives and even swords and there are no longer any doors to protect us,” he said, while claiming that he has received only basic medical treatment following a gunshot wound last week. Families of inmates have also backed the hunger strike by setting up camp outside Downtown’s Riad al-Solh Square, where they are vowing to stay as long as the prisoners’ protest continues. “My father has a serious skin disease and stomach cancer but he is not receiving any care,” said protester Nour Sabbah. “He is on hunger strike and I will stay here as long as it takes for him to get treatment.” A host of reforms was offered following the crackdown to restore order in the prison, with the Interior Ministry pledging to speed up the trial process and ISF delivering water tanks and 4,000 mattresses to the prison, which was originally designed with a capacity of little more than 1,000 but now houses some 3,700 inmates. Activists, however, say these changes have been superficial. “Many people in Roumieh have been there for one or two years without seeing a judge. This cannot go on, they have to have justice,” said Akil Khalil. “If conditions do not improve quickly I am worried that the fires which were set will be reignited,” he added. Meanwhile, in a phone conversation with Grand Mufti Mohammad Rashid Qabbani Wednesday, caretaker Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar said that work is under way to reduce the regular prison year sentence to nine months instead of 12. Najjar also reportedly said an exceptional meeting took place between caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud, in which they discussed the issue. For his part, Qabbani said that it was time to solve the prisoners’ problems within the legal framework to put an end to the suffering of inmates.