Kaag Urges Lebanon to Implement U.N. Recommendations on Ending Torture

United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Sigrid Kaag expressed concern Monday over the reported human rights violations in Roumieh prison.

“The Special Coordinator underscored the importance of the immediate measures taken by the Ministers of Interior and Justice to address the alleged abuse, including the launch of a criminal investigation,” her office said in a statement.

“These reports call attention to the need for implementation of the recommendations by the U.N. Sub-committee on the Prevention of Torture in 2010 and by the U.N. Committee Against Torture in 2014,” it added.

Kaag also expressed support for the government’s efforts to “end impunity” and emphasized “the U.N.’s readiness to assist Lebanon in fulfilling its legal obligations as a state party to a number of relevant international human rights treaties.”

Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq and Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi have pledged accountability and announced the detention of five ISF personnel, after videos of security guards abusing and torturing Roumieh prison inmates went viral on social networking websites.

The two videos, apparently filmed on cellphones, appear to show guards at the prison humiliating detainees and beating them with plastic pipes.

In one video, a prisoner lies on a floor covered in water, stripped to his underwear with his hands tied behind his back.

He is asked what he is accused of, and replies "transporting terrorists."

A guard then beats him repeatedly with a green pipe, while another man off-camera encourages him and demands that the prisoner kiss his assailant's boot.

In the other video, around a dozen prisoners, all stripped to their underwear with their hands tied behind them are seated on a floor.

A guard can be seen beating at least two prisoners, shouting at one: "Lower your voice or I'll put your eyes out."

Roumieh, the oldest and largest of Lebanon's overcrowded prisons, has witnessed sporadic prison breaks and escalating riots in recent years as inmates living in poor conditions demand better treatment.

Y.R.