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horror
over the miserable prison conditions
of
Lebanese Forces commander Samir Geagea
The Beirut Bar
Association has expressed horror over the miserable prison conditions of
Lebanese Forces commander Samir Geagea and urged Parliament's Human Rights
Committee to intervene to end his 10 years in
solitary
confinement at the Defense Ministry jail in Yarze.
The Bar
Association's plea on Friday followed a visit by its president Salim Osta
to Geagea at his prison cell on Wednesday. It urged the parliamentary
committee to visit Geagea at his solitary confinement cell and listen to
him narrating his suffering, An Nahar reported Saturday.
The association's
statement said Geagea's prison conditions violate his rights as a human
being as well as international norms and treaties on the treatment of
prisoners. It noted that the International Committee
of the Red Cross
(ICRC) had never been allowed to visit Geagea in prison for the past 10
years.
The statement
declared the Bar Association's support for ongoing efforts to release
Geagea form prison as a precondition for a genuine national reconciliation
that would lower the curtain on the lingering post-civil war animosities.
Legislator
Marwan Fares, Chairman of Parliament's Human Rights Committee, said a
delegation of committee members would soon visit the Defense Ministry
prison to determine whether the prisoners' rights are
respected.
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