FPM Backs 'Health Emergency', Warns against Rushed Amnesty
The Free Patriotic Movement announced Monday that it supports the government in its decision to declare a “health emergency” rather than a “security or military state of emergency,” as it warned against issuing an “arbitrary general amnesty law” under the pressure of the coronavirus crisis.
Urging citizens to “abide by the rules of the health emergency state,” the FPM called on the government to be “strict in implementing it.”
“The government is the authority responsible for taking decisions and it has decided that the health situation requires imposing a state of health emergency and not a security or military one and we support this decision,” the FPM’s political commission said in a statement issued after an “electronic” meeting chaired by FPM chief MP Jebran Bassil.
“The situation might develop and it might take another decision it sees appropriate to protect citizens,” the statement added, noting that “the declaration of a state of emergency has legal and procedural requirements that obligate the State to secure people’s livelihood, issue permissions to leave houses and find ways to penalize violators.”
Commenting on calls for issuing a general amnesty for prisoners as a precaution against the spread of coronavirus in jails, the FPM’s political commission stressed that it is “totally unacceptable to commit legal sins under the excuse of protection against coronavirus by issuing an arbitrary general amnesty.”
“The responsibility for protecting prisoners falls on the shoulders of the authorities in charge, who should prevent their mixing with outsiders and must secure prompt medical examinations for them on a continuous basis in order to protect them” the commission added.
“Ending the suffering of the detainees lies in speeding up their trials in a fair manner and according to the applicable laws, not in pardoning them over the committed crimes. This is possible through interrogating them electronically via audiovisual technologies in order to avoid any personal contact with them. As for those who have finished their sentences or are about to finish them, quick legal solutions can be found to take them out of jails as soon as possible,” the FPM went on to say.
Source: Naharnet
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