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LEBANON Shadow Report

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LEBANON Shadow Report LEBANON Shadow report Report submitted to the Committee against Torture in the context of the initial review of Lebanon Alkarama Foundation 16 March 2017 Alkarama Foundation – 150 route de Ferney, C.P. 2100 CH – 1211 Genève 2 – Switzerland +41 22 734 10 06 – +41 22 734 10 34 – [email protected] – www.alkarama.org Table of contents TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................................................................ 2 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 3 2. BACKGROUND .......................................................................................................................................... 3 3. THE PRACTICE OF TORTURE ...................................................................................................................... 5 3.1 DEFINITION, ABSOLUTE PROHIBITION AND CRIMINALISATION ................................................................................. 5 3.2 WIDESPREAD AND SYSTEMATIC TORTURE .......................................................................................................... 6 3.2.1 Article 20 inquiry and limited implementation of its recommendations ......................................... 7 3.2.2 Widespread and systematic use of torture ..................................................................................... 7 3.3 VIOLATIONS OF THE LEGAL SAFEGUARDS RELATED TO THE DEPRIVATION OF LIBERTY ................................................... 9 3.3.1 Arbitrariness of arrests .................................................................................................................. 10 3.3.2 Violations of the right to legal counsel during investigation and the practice of incommunicado detention ....................................................................................................................................................... 11 3.3.3 Absence of prompt and independent medical assistance ............................................................. 12 3.3.4 Violations of the right to be promptly brought before a judge and the right not to be tried without undue delay ..................................................................................................................................... 13 3.4 EXTRACTION OF CONFESSIONS UNDER TORTURE AND VIOLATION OF THE EXCLUSIONARY RULE .................................... 14 3.5 ABUSES COMMITTED IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM ........................................................ 15 3.5.1 Arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detentions and extraction of confessions under torture ........ 15 3.5.2 The exceptional justice system ...................................................................................................... 16 3.5.2.1 The Military Court ......................................................................................................................... 16 3.5.2.1 The Judicial Council........................................................................................................................ 18 3.5.3 Abuses against refugees ................................................................................................................ 19 3.6 EXCESSIVE USE OF FORCE AGAINST PROTESTORS ................................................................................................ 21 3.7 ABSENCE OF EFFECTIVE MEASURES TO PREVENT TORTURE ................................................................................... 23 3.8 A PREVAILING IMPUNITY FOR ACTS OF TORTURE ................................................................................................ 25 4. CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................................... 26 2 Alkarama Foundation – 150 route de Ferney, C.P. 2100 CH – 1211 Genève 2 – Switzerland +41 22 734 10 06 – +41 22 734 10 34 – [email protected] – www.alkarama.org 1. Introduction Lebanon’s first periodic report (CAT/C/LBN/1)1 was submitted to the Committee against Torture on 9 March 2016, with a delay of over 14 years, and will be reviewed by the Committee at its 60th session. Alkarama regrets that the State party report only contains a compilation of Lebanese laws without providing information on the current practice of torture in Lebanon. Alkarama hereby submits this shadow report in which it evaluates the implementation of the Convention against Torture in Lebanon (hereinafter “the Convention”), highlighting its main concerns and addressing recommendations to the State party. This report is based on Alkarama’s documentation of human rights violations in Lebanon since 2004, as well as, on a review of the State party’s report. Alkarama also wishes to provide the Committee with a detailed follow-up of its recommendations issued in October 2014, following its inquiry under article 20 of the Convention,2 which established the widespread and systematic character of the use of torture in the country. Since then, torture continues to be practiced in Lebanon; suspects are deprived the most fundamental legal safeguards as they are routinely arrested without warrant, detained for extended periods of time without judicial oversight, often incommunicado, and interrogated in order to extract confessions that will be used as a source of evidence in trials. Alkarama notes that such pattern is particularly evident in cases where suspects, even minors, are accused of crimes of terrorism and tried by military courts, before which they are not afforded a fair trial in line with international standards, and often sentenced to heavy penalties. While acknowledging the challenges faced by Lebanon, Alkarama hopes that the Committee’s constructive dialogue with the State party and its recently appointed new government will allow to tackle the issue of torture in the country. 2. Background Part of the Ottoman Empire from the early 16th century, Lebanon came under French mandate after World War I and achieved independence in 1943, when Shia, Sunni, and Maronite leaderships agreed on the National Pact establishing a “confessional democracy”, a system of government whereby political and institutional power is distributed proportionally among religious communities. Since the independence and until the mid-1970s, the country prospered, but the conflicts between the Christian and Muslim communities, the regional instability and the influx of Palestinian refugees, brought Lebanon on the brink of civil war. Beginning in 1975 and lasting for 15 years, the civil war had a heavy toll on the civilian population, with mass politically motivated arrests and detentions, torture and ill- treatments, violations of the rights to fair trials, and executions carried out by the various State and non-State actors. Broadly opposing Palestinian and pro-Palestinian Muslim militias against Lebanon’s Christian militias, the Lebanese civil war was also characterised by the intervention of neighbouring States, Israel and Syria, which both aimed at limiting Palestinian armed factions. As Israel launched a full-scale invasion of southern Lebanon to counter the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1982, Shia militia group Hezbollah was formed against it. While most of Israeli troops withdrew from Beirut by 1985, confrontations between Lebanese military factions and the Israeli army continued in southern Lebanon until 2000, when they withdrew. Syrian armed forces, that had entered Lebanon in 1976, left the country in 2005, following a series of public peaceful demonstrations calling for the Syrian army withdrawal and conveying widespread anger at the assassination of Rafiq Hariri – former Prime Minister of Lebanon – the same year. 1 Committee against Torture, Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 19 of the Convention, Initial reports of State parties due in 2001, Lebanon, 14 April 2016, (CAT/C/LBN/1*); hereinafter “State party report”. 2 UN Committee Against Torture (CAT), Report of the UN Committee against Torture: Fifty-first session (28 October–22 November 2013) Fifty-second session (28 April–23 May 2014), A/69/44. 3 Alkarama Foundation – 150 route de Ferney, C.P. 2100 CH – 1211 Genève 2 – Switzerland +41 22 734 10 06 – +41 22 734 10 34 – [email protected] – www.alkarama.org Hopes of stabilisation brought about by the Syrian retreat were short-lived, as Lebanon was hit by another conflict against Israel in the summer of 2006, following Hezbollah’s kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. After 33 days of fights that left at least 1,287 people, nearly all civilians, dead and 4,054 wounded,3 mostly Lebanese, and damage to civilian infrastructures, the conflict ended with the deployment of UN peacekeeping forces along the southern border. While reconstruction of the country unfolded, waves of arrests and interrogations outside the established legal procedures continued, targeting political activists as well as reporters, human rights activists, peaceful demonstrators and trade unionists. Bad conditions of detention and torture continued, eventually leading to a riot in April 2008 in the Roumieh prison, following an incident of police brutality on an inmate during questioning. In May 2007, clashes erupted at the Palestinian refugee camp Nahr el-Bared between Islamist militants and the military. About 40,000 residents fled before the army gained control
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