Protests broke out across Lebanon on Tuesday as the long-awaited General Amnesty law is set to be approved during a plenary session scheduled for Thursday, according to Lebanese media reports.
The draft law aims to tackle Lebanon’s overwhelmed judicial system and severely overcrowded prisons. If adopted, sentences would be reduced, and potentially thousands of prisoners who have spent years in pretrial detention would be released.
The COVID-19 pandemic, Lebanon’s economic struggles, and war have severely disrupted the judicial process, leaving many in a state of detained limbo in which their pretrial detention has extended beyond what the sentence for their crime would be.
Parliament first debated the draft law in April, and the amnesty is understood to be relevant for those imprisoned before March 1, reportedly barring several serious offenses, Lebanese English-language newspaper L’Orient Today reported.
As of 2023, 80% of those detained in Lebanese prisons were awaiting trial, according to the Lebanese Interior Ministry. At the time, detention centers across Lebanon had a capacity of 4,760, but they held 8,502 prisoners, including 1,094 who actually had been sentenced, Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces reported.
The overcrowded conditions have created a healthcare risk, and the prisons could only offer subpar treatment options, with food supply heavily endangered by the government’s debt, Human Rights Watch said.
On Wednesday, Lebanese MP Melhem Khalaf told LBCI Lebanon News news channel 106 detainees have waited 12 years for their day in court, which in some cases is longer than their potential sentences would be.
General Amnesty Law exposes divides in Lebanon
While the new law could alleviate some of the country’s financial burdens, it has exposed multiple contentious issues and sectarian divisions in Lebanese society.
One issue is the potential inclusion of Islamist detainees, Lebanese citizens who fled to Israel after the South Lebanon Army (SLA) collapsed in 2000, and individuals convicted of crimes against Lebanese military personnel.
The families of 18 Lebanese soldiers killed in the 2013 Abra clash wrote to Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Sunday to request that those involved in the slaughter be excluded from the deal.
The deadly clash, which left 29 dead, saw members of the Lebanese Armed Forces attacked by heavily armed terrorists loyal to radical Sunni cleric Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir in a two-day battle in Sidon.
Islamists' families protest for inclusion in deal
The victims’ families have been vocally opposed to the Islamists’ release, but the families of those detained have protested over the past few months to see them included in the deal.
In February, they blocked highways and protested outside Sidon’s Aisha Mosque, demanding their relatives’ release “without exception,” Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported.
The Islamists’ families protested across the country on Tuesday in Tripoli, Akkar, Arsal, and Khaldeh, claiming that the exclusion of Islamist terrorists from the law constituted “unjust and inequitable” treatment, L’Orient Today reported.
Many of the protesters blocked roads and burned tires before being dispersed by the Lebanese military, the report said.
The law does not specifically exclude Islamist terrorists with blood on their hands, but it requires the relatives of murder victims to waive their personal legal rights.
Furthermore, Christian groups reportedly are seeking to have members of the SLA who fled to Israel after the IDF’s withdrawal in 2000 be allowed to return. The SLA personnel and their families have spent two decades in exile, and they should be allowed to return as part of the framework, the groups say.
The SLA officials have not taken any action against the Lebanese state, but their inclusion in the amnesty would be particularly contentious given the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah, Al-Modon news site reported.
In 2011, the Lebanese parliament passed a bill that enabled the return of Lebanese citizens residing in Israel, but the law was never implemented.
Christian politicians may now be pushing for those exiled to be allowed to return, according to Maryam Younnes, the daughter of an SLA commander who was forced to flee when she was five years old.
Younnes and many in her community did not want to return to the “country that abandoned us,” she told The Jerusalem Post.
Few of them had confidence that if they returned, the government and Hezbollah would allow them to live peacefully, Younnes said.
“Our parents are not criminals,” she said. “Our parents are heroes who fought for Lebanon against terrorist organizations and foreign powers. They fought with Israel to stay in their land; otherwise, we would be slaughtered.”
“Amnesty is a nice symbolic move, but we expect from our country an apology and a statement that SLA members are national heroes who fought for their land,” Younnes said. “This is the only justice we want. As for us, we would never be safe in today’s Lebanon, and we would never go back to the current situation.”
“As long as Hezbollah controls Lebanon, we won’t go back,” she said. “Ideally, for us, would be the elimination of Hezbollah and a peace agreement with Israel.”