Bar Association Expresses Horror over Geagea's Prison Misery
April 24, 2004



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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