Articles for Lebanon

Alkarama is deeply concerned by those events as Mr Kayed was already arrested and tortured by the Lebanese authorities following his initial arrest in 2007.

The Lebanese authorities should immediately cease harassment of Saadeddine Shatila, of the international human rights group Alkarama, for his work documenting torture by security forces, a group of eleven international and local groups said at a news conference today. The groups also criticized an emerging pattern of intimidation against human rights defenders who raise concerns about security agencies.

Saadeddine Shatila, Alkarama's representative in Lebanon, was held yesterday morning, 25 July 2011, for questioning by Lebanese military intelligence in Beirut. According to the summons which he received last Friday, he was questioned regarding certain "security issues", but was released later the same day after seven hours of interrogation, which mainly concerned his human rights work.

Alkarama is concerned that false confessions extracted under torture may be used during this hearing and has therefore submitted their cases to the Special Rapporteur on Torture and the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions as they are at risk of the death penalty.

The four individuals on trial are:

Ibrahim Ahmad Hamid, a 53-year-old Palestinian refugee, was arrested on 8 August 2008 in the United States for his alleged involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, only to be forcibly returned to Lebanon on 25 May 2010 after 22 months in Henderson County Correctional Center in Kentucky, USA. The Lebanese authorities are currently trying him on charges of murder and "forming a terrorist group," for which he was tortured in order to extract false confessions. Alkarama fears that he will be heavily sentenced based on concocted confessions.

The Geneva-based Alkarama Foundation and the Union of Muslim Human Rights Activists in Lebanon addressed a detailed communication to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention regarding the arbitrary detention of 92 detainees held in Roumieh prison during the past three years.

The men were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the events which took place between May and September 2007 at the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp, located in northern Lebanon some 20km from Tripoli.