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Declaratation of 26 June Declaration of June 26, 2011 The International Day in Support of Victims of Torture Torture is a crime against humanity, domestic violence is devastating families and societies, forced disappearance is violating human personal rights and security, poverty is violating economic and social rights of citizens and is leading to violence and torture, security is economic and social security and community development is overall development and is related to reducing rates of poverty. Because all of the above, participants of the sit-in that was organized on the 26 of June that was held in front of the Grand Sarai in Riad el Solh Square, on the occasion of the United Nations International Day in support of victims of torture, demands the Government of applying the following: At the level of torture: • Criminalize torture in the Lebanese law • Increase penalties for crimes of torture • Provide Lebanon’s report to the Committee against Torture at the United Nations (delay 11 years) • Establish a national preventive mechanism for the prevention of torture (delay of three years) • Rehabilitate victims of violence and torture and compensate them At the level of the Lebanese prisons: • Investigate about the massacre of Roumieh Prison that occurred on the 2nd of April and make sure that perpetrators do not escape punishment • Invite the Sub-Commission on Prevention in the United Nations to visit Lebanon and participate in the investigation of Roumieh Prison’s massacre • Reconsider the concept of penal institution and all the prison system in Lebanon and transfer them to reform and rehabilitation centers • Separate prisoners on the basis of health status and type of crime and size • Close Lebanon’s regional prisons and build new ones • Develop alternative sanctions • Consider that the medical, psychological, social, and professional rehabilitation of prisoners are the foundation of treatment • Give special attention to underage prisoners • Consider extreme sickness conditions and release them • Organize monthly visits of the prosecutor and the investigating judge of appeal to Lebanese prisons • Link medical assistance to the Ministry of Health and appoint psychologists in prisons • Assign a ministerial committee to plan a comprehensive and radical reform to prisons’ issue Issue of missing persons: • Consider that the issue of missing persons is a national and a humanitarian issue • Form an independent national body to investigate the fate of all forced disappeared wherever they are • Develop social, mental, and rehabilitative programs to families of missing persons • Establish a DNA bank • Form of a committee for the truth, memory, and equity • Organize a yearly national day for missing persons • Ratify the international convention for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearance Sectarianism, torture and violence: • Form a national commission for the abolishment of sectarianism • Adopt a law that criminalize the incitement of sectarianism • Develop awareness of citizenship to free Lebanese from the world's worst prison, “sectarianism” • Adopt a law that criminalize domestic violence and the abolition of all forms of discrimination against women Poverty and torture: • Combat poverty, unemployment, price rising, housing crisis, and immigration by addressing the root of the economic situation. Promote economic and social rights of citizens: right to health, right to education, right to housing and right to adequate standard of living. • Admit that absence of social justice is the path to the torture, violence, murder, drugs and terrorism. • Adopt the civil and social rights of Palestinian refugees • Protect foreign labor UPR: • Establish a timely oriented mechanism to implement the recommendations that Lebanon agreed on at the 16th session of the United Nation Human Rights Council during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on March 17, 2011 • Establish a coordination committee between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and civil society to launch a comprehensive workshop to implement the recommendations No peace and security of the homeland under the sectarian system that produces poverty, violence, torture, racism, forced disappearances and wars. No development without social justice and respect for human dignity. The roots of violence and torture are poverty, discrimination and poor economic conditions. Sectarian system is a system of civil wars, hatred and racism. Security and development is possible only through criminalization of torture and violence, the uncovering the fate of all missing persons, the abolition of political sectarianism, and the promotion of human rights, economic, social and respect for human dignity. Poverty is “torture”, sectarianism is “torture” and discrimination is “torture”. June 26 is a space of solidarity with all victims of violence and torture that are languishing behind the bars of justice and freedom. |