The authorities should close all current prisons and build new ones in each district where convicts can work and earn money for themselves and their families, according to the Catholic Church’s prison adviser.
Father Elie Nasr says that the new prisons should offer convicts a healthy environment and preserve their dignity and basic human rights, adding that even if there was no physical abuse in prison, convicts should not be subject to emotional or psychological torture.
In an interview with The Daily Star, Nasr said that this issue could be solved in the near future, adding that Interior Minister Elias Murr was looking into a project to establish new prisons, after the Cabinet had already approved the move and issued a law allowing municipalities to sell lands for building new prisons.
Nasr is a general adviser for the country’s prisons and the head of a Catholic Church group called the Prisons General Advisory. The council of catholic bishops elected him to the position, where he is to provide spiritual, social and humanitarian assistance to convicts in all of the country’s prisons.
He described his main role as helping prisoners regain the moral values they lost when they committed a crime, and help those people get back on the right track and be good citizens, so once they regain their freedom, they would be productive in society.
Alongside the spiritual guidance in the form of masses, prayers and spiritual counseling, which Nasr described as his main objective, the advisory group also provides social guidance.
He said that he collaborated with groups such as Caritas and the Saint Vincent Organization to pay some necessary fees on behalf of the prisoners, provide them with needed clothing and supplying them with food and hygiene products.
He said that the group was recently focusing on promoting medical care in prisons. Following joint efforts with local and foreign nongovernmental organizations, which he said had provided logistical and financial assistance, the advisory group established a medical center in Roumieh Prison.
He added that the prison advisory group wanted to establish other medical clinics.
Muslim spiritual leaders are also involved in similar projects, which he described as the outcome of the hard work conducted by the High Committee of Prison Advisers, comprised of clerics from different sects.
Nasr said that the Catholic advisory group had also taken the responsibility of administrating a department specialized in the treatment of prisoners who were mentally ill and those suffering from AIDS or drug addiction.
The group also sponsors a magazine that deals with issues related to prison life, he said. The monthly, which includes articles written by convicts, is distributed to magistrates, the Internal Security Forces, MPs and ministers, he said.
Nasr said that the advisory group was also trying to introduce a program aimed at helping ex-convicts sustain a legal living. However, he added that the implementation of the program was being hindered by a shortage of available funds, despite the contributions of foreign aid organizations.
The group is also working on a program to train prisoners with manual labor skills while they are serving time. Nasr added that the project would give the prisoners marketable skills when they are released.
We are working on a study to conduct this project and we hope to find strong financial support to go on, he said. As soon as the financial part is secured, we will launch this project.
Nasr also said the efforts of the advisory group had had a noticeable impact in improving living conditions at the country’s prisons.
In particular, he hailed the group’s work at the Furn al-Shubbak Prison, saying: We made it possible for prisoners there to shower in hot water and sleep properly. We took them from a desperate situation to a situation that is not ideal, but the best possible; it is a 60 percent improvement.
He added that the advisory group made a tour of all the country’s prisons for Christmas and distributed clothes and gifts.
He insisted that much work was left to be done.
All the current correctional facilities can’t be called prisons; they all needed a lot of work to be up the standards, even Roumieh Prison.
He also indicated that his work extended to the Defense Ministry’s prison, whose conditions he criticized.
This is not a prison; it is a military detention center, he said, adding: It was established for certain people without considering the main basics of a prison, such as a healthy environment, a space for walking and resting. These necessities don’t exist there.
He said that even though he frequently visited the Defense Ministry’s facility, where Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and some of his comrades are held, his visits were only for spiritual guidance.
Nasr, who said that the authorities were supporting the advisory group in all its projects, added that this facility a particular case. This is a political issue and we can do nothing to improve that prison’s status.
The cleric also rejected the idea that prisons were run by gangs of convicts, saying this popularly held notion was totally wrong.
Even if there are some distinct groups at some prisons, the guards and the authorities were always in control.
It is like any prison in the world, convicts have always the tendency to break the rules. It is like students, he said. Once the guards found a convict with a cell phone, but no serious activities take place without the authorities at the prison knowing about it and stopping it at the right moment.
Nasr also urged the media and civil society to support and encourage the government to proceed in its campaign to improve prisons. Lebanon is one of the pioneers with regard to the UN Declaration on Human Rights, and it should be one of the first and best countries in promoting human rights, especially in its prisons.