BEIRUT: A Lebanese center for rehabilitating victims of torture announced Thursday a week of activities scheduled for later this month, including a sit-in to pressure the government to honor its commitments to prevent torture in the country’s prisons.
Mohammad Safa, the secretary-general of the Khiam Rehabilitation Center for the Victims of Torture, made the announcement during a news conference at the Press Federation in Beirut.
“Just like every year, the Khiam Rehabilitation Center for the Victims of Torture will mark June 26, the U.N. International Day in support of Victims of Torture, under the international campaign organized by the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture, and the U.N. and humanitarian organizations,” Safa said. The U.N. Convention against Torture entered into force on June 26, 1987.Safa said that the international campaign would focus this year on poverty “because it is the path to torture, violence, killing, drugs, terrorism and all human rights violations.”
He said Lebanon had yet to take any practical steps toward fulfilling recommendations made by the U.N. Human Rights Council, which it accepted in March. The recommendations made by the council included developing a national mechanism to combat torture; passing stricter punishments for torture; establishing an independent national committee to investigate the fate of those who went missing during the 1975-90 Civil War; and addressing the plight of Palestinian refugees in the country.
This year’s activities will culminate in a sit-in entitled “Poverty is Torture, Sectarianism is Torture, Discrimination is Torture,” to be held in Downtown Beirut near the Grand Serail at 11 a.m. on June 26.
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