Lebanese women behind bars: 52% tortured during interrogation

A report published last Thursday by the Lebanese Center for Human Rights under the title “Women behind bars- arbitrary detention and torture of women in Lebanon” indicated that almost 52% of women detainees in Lebanon in the years 2013 and 2014 were subjected to severe torture by security forces during their interrogation. According to CLDH, the main methods of torture and mistreatment used by male security guards or investigators against women who were interviewed varied between beating, deprivation, humiliation, threats, insults and infringement on privacy. In this respect, the Director General of CLDH, Wadih Al Asmar expressed disappointment in the findings of the report, which revealed that the level of arrested persons in the Lebanese prisons who were tortured did not change (60%) since 2009. Asmar noted that the provisions of Article 47 of the Code of Criminal Procedure are not adequate to protect individuals against torture during arrest, stating that women defendants have no right to talk to their lawyers in private and therefore cannot report ill-treatment. “During the period under study, Lebanese judges have continued to rely on confessions of suspects reached under torture and have failed to order further investigations in these cases. As a result, women continue to be victims of illegal detention and torture by security forces in a clear breach of the Lebanese Law and the Lebanon’s international obligations,” Al Asmar concluded. (L’Orient Le Jour, 17 April 2015)