The chairman of Parliament’s Human Rights Committee said Thursday the country’s prison buildings require a thorough overhaul, adding that changing the authority responsible for incarceration was not a sufficient improvement. Speaking during a radio interview, Metn MP Ghassan Moukheiber said he supported transferring jurisdiction for prisons from the Interior Ministry to the Justice Ministry, but said “transferring the file of prison administration ... alone will not solve the problem. Lebanon’s prisons require a total overhaul when it comes to prison facilities.” He also urged “professionalism” in handling prison management, and urged all ministries to work together to improve prisons conditions. “Detainees in preventive custody do not have suitable spaces; prisons have become dilapidated, and graduate criminals,” he said.
