Hundreds on hunger strike in Lebanon prison as amnesty stalled

Hundreds of inmates in a Lebanese prison have been on hunger strike for 10 days over the stalled implementation of an amnesty law supposed to benefit them, a judicial official told AFP on Tuesday.

Lebanon's parliament last month passed the sweeping amnesty law, the first since 1991 after the country's civil war. The legislation is meant to help thousands of prisoners and wanted people, many of them Islamists.

But a group of lawmakers has since lodged an appeal with Lebanon's Constitutional Council seeking to overturn the law, leading to a suspension of its implementation on September 10.

At the overcrowded Roumieh prison near the capital Beirut, the country's largest jail, "400 mostly Islamist detainees have been on hunger strike since September 12" in protest at the suspension, the official said, requesting anonymity.

The Constitutional Council, which verifies whether laws are in line with the Lebanese constitution, is expected to announce its decision next month.

According to the official, prison administrators are monitoring the health of the striking prisoners, 80 of whom suffer from chronic illness.

For years, Lebanon's parliament had been trying to pass the amnesty law, largely as a way to reduce overcrowding in prisons, which has been exacerbated by slow-moving trials and the detention of suspects for years without judicial proceedings.

In a report last year, the country's National Human Rights Commission said the prison population had reached 300 percent of capacity, with more than 6,200 inmates by the end of March.

Some Islamist detainees have been held for years, in some cases without trial.

The prospect of granting amnesty to some of these detainees, accused of carrying out bombings and attacks against the Lebanese army, polarised the debate around the law before it was passed.

The legislation, which experts say was the result of political horse-trading, is supposed to also benefit other factions and religious communities.