When the Lebanese parliament approved a landmark amnesty bill on August 12, prisoners at the country's largest jail in Roumieh cheered ahead of their expected release while supporters let off fireworks elsewhere.
Weeks later, those scenes have been replaced by anger, despair and protest after an appeal was filed this month against the law by the Free Patriotic Movement, one of the Lebanese parliament's largest parties, with the Constitutional Council – which then suspended it, pending its verdict, which is expected in the coming weeks.
Rather than being granted what should, in theory, have been an immediate release or reduced sentence, many prisoners find themselves still inside.
How many are on hunger strike is a matter of contention in Lebanon's jails, infamous for their overcrowding and grim conditions – but there is an acceptance from all sides that tensions are boiling over. Those close to the prisoners, some of whom shared images from inside Roumieh and described the apparent situation there, say more than 400 inmates are refusing food and medicine, with more than 40 in critical condition as a result.
“There are tensions, yes,” a judicial source aware of the situation told The National. “But hundreds of prisoners on strike, no, maybe only two or three. And of course [there is] no death toll because of this.”
However, the Committee of Prisoners’ Families warned of an “escalating crises” for prisoners' health “within an overcrowded prison housing thousands of inmates”.
'State of crisis'
When Lebanon's parliament passed the general amnesty law in August, it was the first such legislation since 1991 in the wake of the 1975-1990 civil war, when most fighters were pardoned.
This time MPs in the bitterly divided 128-seat legislature argued for months over who should be included, in a move that was supposed to reduce overcrowding, with the current prison population at about 8,500, while capacity is only 4,500.
In the end it was the fate of the so-called Sunni Islamist detainees, many of whom are accused of shedding Lebanese Army blood and convicted on terrorism charges, that proved to be the issue that ultimately led to the challenge at the Constitutional Council. It is those same men who are now leading the protest at Roumieh's Building B, which typically hosts the Islamist detainees.
“The humanitarian situation today at Roumieh Prison has gone beyond the warning stage and entered a state of crisis,” said Aya Assir Hosseiny, whose father in law, Ahmed Al Assir, is perhaps the most prominent of the inmates.
She spoke of “intense anger and tension” on the streets and in Roumieh. “We are talking about 41 prisoners in critical condition, as their spokesperson described it, one after another, due to severe exhaustion,” she told The National.
Images leaked from inside on Monday included a placard asking: “Are you waiting for another death? Go on with your lives; we will go on with ours – in death.”
Anger on the streets
The anger has since spread to the streets, where hundreds of protesters held a sit-in in Lebanon's second city of Tripoli, which has a majority Sunni population.
Similar protests broke out earlier this year, when it appeared Mr Al Assir and his supporters would not be included in the amnesty.
He has been accused of leading clashes with the military in the southern city of Sidon in 2013, in which at least 18 soldiers and 25 pro-Assir gunmen were killed. He and his supporters say he has been victimised for his support of the-then Syrian rebels against the Assad regime and his intense criticism of Hezbollah. The Assad regime would later be toppled by the rebels in December 2024.
Many prisoners have been held without trial for years because of the slowness within the court system and its processes.
On the other side of the argument are those who feel deeply uncomfortable about releasing or reducing the sentence of some of Lebanon's allegedly most dangerous people including those who have killed Lebanese soldiers.
The appeal to the Constitutional Council was made by the Free Patriotic Movement, which had voted against the bill and rallied against granting amnesty or reducing the sentence of those convicted of the serious crimes, including killing Lebanese soldiers.
For now the law is on hold yet again, as is often the case in Lebanon's sometimes slow legal system.
